


one night of moonlight

by calloffyourethics



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alcohol, College, F/M, Identity Reveal, Making Out, Sexting, Sexual Fantasy, Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-15 00:32:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11794716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calloffyourethics/pseuds/calloffyourethics
Summary: i'll always think of youinside of my private thoughtsi can imagine youtouching my private parts2:13ok im texting you now like i promised instead of drunktexting adrien and telling him how badly i want his cock tonight. arent you proud of me?2:19this is Adrien, hi.Marinette's brain-to-mouth filter isn't great on the best of days. Add some beer and some misplaced texts, and things get a little more... interesting.





	one night of moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> **Written in equal parts by the talented[clairelutra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exosolarmoon/pseuds/clairelutra), and calloffyourethics** for [MLNSFWeek](http://mirthaculous.tumblr.com/post/150254082577/mlnsfweek-episode-1).

It had been a long night for Marinette.

Beer wasn't technically her drink of choice. She didn't _hate_ it, but it wasn't really to her taste. Given the choice, she'd take an imaginative cocktail or fine wine over the selection of pilsners and ales that most Parisian eateries carried.

Which made it a mystery how she always wound up drinking so much beer every time she went out for l’apéro.

Maybe it was because it kept her in her cups without letting her get too far gone. That was a major plus, because it turned out drunk Marinette was an incredibly horny Marinette — minus a few manners, some decorum, and just about all of her filters.

(Considering sober Marinette wasn't exactly meek on the best of days, that was saying something.)

After a few early disasters, being drunk became something she did her best to avoid. Which meant watching her alcohol intake. Which in turn meant a lot less to drink, if not for beer, so maybe it wasn't such a big mystery that beer was her go-to after all.

Still, even with those precautions, every now and again she found herself on the wrong side of tipsy thanks to one too many glasses of some local draft.

This evening was turning out to be one of those nights. Marinette was sitting alone in the raucous crowd at a café bar, more than a little inebriated and with more than a lot of hormones.

Nursing a nearly-empty pint while contemplating her phone and feeling pretty empty herself, Marinette reviewed her evening.

Their group had been late purchasing tickets to the local university's football game, preventing them from getting seats together as they normally did. Alya had decided that the solution to this was some serious pregame (and postgame) drinking and nachos, plus text messages to keep in touch during the game itself. That part hadn't been so bad: Marinette had spotted Adrien's seat a few rows in front of hers, and had been able to occupy herself between goals and texts by hungrily studying the slope of his shoulders and the way his blond hair curled at the nape of his neck.

It hadn't calmed her libido any, but it had been a pleasant enough way to pass the time — until after the game, when Adrien had bowed out early citing morning classes and the need for sleep. Then she'd been left to wade through the dense crowds until she'd found Alya and Nino again.

Only to sit around and squirm while watching her two rather attractive friends make out for a good ten minutes.

That... may have been the start of her descent, Marinette thought, the realization fighting tooth and nail to make it through the buzz.

She wasn't sure why she'd thought that more alcohol would make her _less_ horny (the lies and slander about 'drowning your sorrows,' maybe), but she had, and a few glasses later she'd found her brain wandering around to the subject of Chat.

And Adrien.

And how Adrien was Chat.

And how he looked at her. How Chat looked at Ladybug... and how Adrien looked at Marinette.

And how he didn't know it was her wearing both skins.

And how Chat was Adrien in a skintight black bodysuit.

With cat ears.

And a zipper.

A zipper that ran from his throat to—

That was the point where she'd knocked back the third beer, and then Alya had come back over, putting a fourth in her hands and dragging her over to talk to some new friends.

The muddied swirl of Adrien-Chat-identities-ears- _zipper_ had only worsened throughout the night, with the thought of texting her partner and finally airing out all her feelings and unresolved sexual frustration becoming more and more tempting by the hour.

Alya must have been able to see it on her face (or maybe Marinette had waxed poetic about what Adrien's happy trail might be like, but _nobody could prove anything_ ), because before they'd split up she had extracted a promise that if Mari got tempted to talk to Adrien — for any reason, but _especially_ if she was horny — she'd text Alya instead and trust her friend to take care of it.

Which kind of defeated the point, but Alya's ideas were usually much better than Marinette's after a drink or ten. Sober Marinette would probably thank her in the morning.

So now, several drinks into the night, instead of picking up her phone and asking Adrien how far down that zipper went, Marinette hurried through her contacts and fired a quick text to the name below his before she could have second thoughts.

With a relieved sigh, she settled back in her chair and took another sip of ale.

She felt proud of herself. Mature. Responsible. She _hadn't_ drunk texted Adrien, and had safely funneled her frustration to her reliable secret-keeper. She had this grownup adult thing _locked._

* * *

Adrien was right on the edge of sleep when his phone buzzed.

Slamming into alertness under any circumstances was rarely pleasant, but Adrien had been trying to sleep for the past few hours now, and to be interrupted now, when it was finally in reach...

It buzzed a second time, rattling on his nightstand, and Adrien spent a good ten seconds trying to glare a hole in his ceiling, wincing as the dull roar outside peaked again.

Adrien had never fully appreciated how _enthusiastic_ people got about sports until he started sharing a campus with one of the best football teams in France.

Good _god_ , did his university love football.

And (Adrien cringed; it sounded like someone had rigged the PSA system for karaoke) there was only one thing it loved more than football:

Winning at football.

(Over the course of the night, Adrien found himself developing a burgeoning hatred for all of it.)

He'd retired from the celebrations early tonight, citing a headache and homework and leaving Nino to enjoy the night with his girlfriend, but the sheer density of noise was rendering sleep impossible.

Adrien sighed, giving up and flailing for his phone. It could be Nino, he reasoned. Nino might need him to bail him out of something or other.

Unlocking his phone, he squinted through the brightness, blinking away his attempts at sleep and finding that the message wasn't from Nino, but Marinette instead.

` **Marinette**`  
`_2:13_` `ok im texting you now like i promised instead of drunktexting adrien and telling him how badly i want his cock tonight.`  
`_2:13_` `arent you proud of me?`

...Uh.

Adrien squinted.

Blinked.

Tilted his head.

Sat up.

The words remained.

A dream, maybe?

A hallucination.

He was probably under sleep paralysis right now. There was no way Marinette ( _Ladybug_ , but he wasn't supposed to know that, so he tried not to) would ever...

_...drunktexting adrien and telling him how badly i want his cock tonight..._

N-no way, right?

Just.

There was no way.

Cautiously, he tapped out a response, feeling more awake by the second.

` **me**`  
`_2:19_` `this is Adrien, hi.`

* * *

She should go home after this, Marinette thought as she brought the last of her pint up to her lips, absently reaching for her phone as it chimed. Alya was being about as prompt as could be expected, considering there was probably a tie hanging off her doorknob right about now.

Marinette picked her phone up, glanced idly at the screen—

—and spit a mouthful of beer across her knees, mercifully (or unmercifully, depending on how one looked at it) missing her phone.

` **♥ beau gosse ♥**`  
`_2:19_` `this is Adrien, hi.`

Shit.

_Shit._

_**Shitshitshitshitshit.** _

Marinette did _not_ hurl her device across the bar, but only because Alya (after losing one too many phones) had worked long and hard at training her out of that one knee-jerk habit.

Instead she gripped it so tightly the casing creaked, eyes wide and panicked as a startled rabbit, promptly feeling like she hadn't drank nearly _enough_. What should she do?!? Reply and laugh it off as a joke? Ignore it and avoid talking to Adrien for the rest of her life? Move to Antarctica???

Out of the options, moving to Antarctica seemed like the easiest.

But she was broke and her winter coat, while cute, wasn't exactly made for blizzards. And she supposed Paris would still need Ladybug, probably.

Oh god, Ladybug. Chat. Chat who was Adrien but she shouldn't have known that, and _he_ didn't know that she knew which was a mess but one mucked up identity was bad enough.

Chat who was Adrien, who she'd just drunk sexted.

_Chat who she'd just drunk sexted saying she wanted his cock._

Antarctica wasn't nearly far enough. Until a rocket was invented that could land her on a distant meteor somewhere, she needed to do some damage control.

` **me**`  
`_2:28_` `hey adrien sry plz forget that text exists hahaha just a joke hahahahaha`  
`_2:29_` `ALYA HELPI JUST TEXTED ADRIEN SAYING I WANT HIS COCK WHAT DO I DO`  
`_2:29_` `IT WASNT EVEN ON PURPOSE I WAS TRYING TO DO WHAT YOU TOLD ME`  
`_2:29_` `ALYA HELP`

* * *

Adrien waited.

She didn't reply immediately, which... okay if he'd sent that to someone, intentionally or not, he might avoid them for the rest of his life too, but this was _Ladybug_ who'd just texted him like an old friend (after months of having her number and only using it for pleasantries and delivering messages from friends) and said she wanted _his cock_ which...

( _Ladybug perched over his bed, smirking as she took him in one scarlet-gloved hand, spreading her thighs and lowering herself—_ )

His stomach clenched, a jolt of heat slithering through his body, and Adrien clicked his phone on almost convulsively.

_2:23 AM_

Okay. Okay, two minutes wasn't bad. She could have wandered away. Could be talking to someone. Could...

He checked his phone again.

_2:23 AM_

He was going crazy.

Maybe... maybe it was autocorrect? Thinking about it, she couldn't have _actually_ meant his cock. She could have meant something like...

Like...

Like something that didn't imply she wanted to...

Adrien hastily swiped away the glowing _2:24 AM_ on his screen, lost another minute staring at the text, and then tapped to check his other notifications.

His teacher had emailed sometime during the night, saying that tomorrow's class was cancelled, but Adrien was too distracted to fully appreciate it.

_2:27 AM_

Okay, if she didn't text back in the next six minutes, he would... text and ask for clarification.

Or something.

His phone buzzed.

Adrien nearly dropped it in his rush to open it up again.

` **Marinette**`  
`_2:28_` `hey adrien sry plz forget that text exists hahaha just a joke hahahahaha`

Adrien let out a sigh, the anticipation in his gut chilling into disappointment.

Of course she hadn't meant it. That would be ridiculous.

He started to type out, _no problem! did you need alya for something?_ (because if Marinette was texting Alya, that probably meant Marinette was alone in a bar past midnight, and friends didn't leave friends in bars alone past midnight) but only got as far as 'need' before Marinette started to type again.

` **Marinette**`  
`_2:29_` `ALYA HELPI JUST TEXTED ADRIEN SAYING I WANT HIS COCK WHAT DO I DO`

Adrien choked.

` **Marinette**`  
`_2:29_` `IT WASNT EVEN ON PURPOSE I WAS TRYING TO DO WHAT YOU TOLD ME`  
`_2:29_` `ALYA HELP`

 _It wasn't even **on purpose?**_ Adrien wondered, almost _dizzy_.

He hesitated for a moment, the typed out a message and sent it.

` **me**`  
`_2:30_` `sorry, still adrien`

* * *

Marinette's phone attempted to buzz, but her hands were gripping it so hard that it only managed a weak shudder. She swiped into her texts like a woman possessed and promptly had to swallow a scream when she saw the message.

This could _not_ be happening. How bad could her luck be?!

Pressing her screen to her forehead, Marinette took several deep breaths.

Okay. Okay. This was okay.

...Well, no, it wasn't okay, nothing about this mess was okay, but she would _make_ it okay and _stop accidentally propositioning Adrien_.

Then she'd go live under a rock for the next month or six.

Squinting one eye closed and holding her phone at arm's length so she wouldn't have to stare directly at the disaster that was her life, she tapped out a careful, contrite response.

` **me**`  
`_2:31_` `i am so so so so sorry just ignore everything i say tonight is really crazy`  
`_2:31_` `you know how postgame is hahaha`  
`_2:32_` `dares and jokes and all`  
`_2:32_` `SUPER crazy`  
`_2:32_` `the craziest!`  
`_2:33_` `just ignore me u probably need sleep right? sleeps important`  
`_2:33_` `so gnight!`

Satisfied that she'd crafted what was, frankly, a masterpiece of diplomacy, Marinette extended a finger and cautiously pressed Send.

Then she swiped back into her contacts with furious speed and jammed out a new text with significantly less calm. _This_ time she was getting it right.

` **me**`  
`_2:34_` `ALYA TEXT ME RIGHT NOW`  
`_2:34_` `save me from myself im begging you`  
`_2:35_` `i accident ally sexted adrien TWICE`  
`_2:35_` `i even sprayed beer all over my pants`  
`_2:35_` `now im wet on the outside too`

* * *

Adrien stared at the cascade of texts, frowning.

He had heard tales of 'postgame,' but 'crazy?'

'The craziest?'

The thought of Marinette doing 'crazy' without Alya at her side (or Ladybug without Chat) clenched his chest tight with anxiety. Especially if she was alone...

Alone and making bets that involved sending suggestive texts to friends.

That... was actually probably what the first text was about, he realized. It would be exactly like Alya to get her best friend to let her filter the craziness instead of watching her do untold damage with stray, dare-induced texts.

That would mean she wasn't entirely alone, too.

Adrien tapped out a reply, relieved.

` **me**`  
`_2:33_` `yeah, sleep is important, but are you okay?`

He started to type, _those dares don't sound like they're messing around_ , but then Marinette sent another message.

` **Marinette**`  
`_2:34_` `ALYA TEXT ME RIGHT NOW`

A snort punched out of Adrien's nose, torn between amusement and worry. He was going to go out on a limb and assume that his contact was very close to Alya's in Marinette's phone. Maybe he _should_ venture out to Alya's dorm room and let her know that Marinette was trying to get a hold of her. There was probably some part of this he wasn't getting and couldn't help with.

Marinette continued to type, sending another row of texts, apparently not having seen Adrien's offer floating just above them.

` **Marinette**`  
`_2:34_` `save me from myself im begging you`  
`_2:35_` `i accident ally sexted adrien TWICE`  
`_2:35_` `i even sprayed beer all over my pants`  
`_2:35_` `now im wet on the outside too`

Adrien, biting the corner of his mouth as he rolled over and typed, `_...would it help if i pretended to be alya?_` abruptly stopped as he read the last text.

Was his room hotter or was that just him?

Almost against his will, Adrien wondered if she was still wearing those sinfully tight skinny jeans she'd been wearing at the game, hooking a finger behind the top button of his pajama top and loosening his collar. Those jeans that looked like she'd have to peel them off when she wanted to ~~take them off~~ _change._

_Bad. No. Stop that. She's **drunk.** And she isn't serious, you know that._

He hit send on his typed text, determined to ignore this new, utterly fascinating nugget of information.

This time he didn't even have to wait a minute for a reply.

` **Marinette**`  
`_2:38_` `...i think first i need to murder my phone`

He could say something about life and inanimate objects and the need for there to be something to murder before murder could happen and so on, but he doubted it would be appreciated at the moment.

` **me**`  
`_2:39_` `that sounds like it might be a bad call`

Puns were much better.

* * *

At the bar, Marinette slowly raised her head from where she'd dropped it on the counter, half-fearing what she might read.

(The server was starting to shoot her concerned looks over the faces she was making. She appreciated the concern, but wished she could just be left to succumb to her social suicide.)

Preemptively wincing, Marinette glanced over Adrien's text.

Blinked.

Squinted.

Slowly typed back.

` **me**`  
`_2:40_` `did you just pun at me`

` **♥ beau gosse ♥**`  
`_2:40_` `...maybe`  
`_2:40_` `sorry, it sounded like you needed a distraction`  
`_2:40_` `how badly did you lose to have to send a text like that?`

Marinette found herself squinting again. _Lose?_

` **me**`  
`_2:41_` `lose?`

` **♥ beau gosse ♥**`  
`_2:41_` `oh, uh, dares? games of dare?`

...Right! Games. There were totally games going on. Games that provided a convenient excuse for her inappropriate texts. It wasn't even a lie!

Probably. She was sure _someone_ in the bar was doing it.

` **me**`  
`_2:42_` `right! yes games. there are definitely games. dare games.`  
`_2:42_` `games of daring`  
`_2:42_` `it's not like i make a habit of randomly texting strangers about their`  
`_2:42_` `you know`

Well, not that Adrien was a stranger.

...What if he thought she had a habit of texting _non_ -strangers about it? Marinette scrambled for her phone again.

` **me**`  
`_2:43_` `or friends`

What if he took that to mean she had a not-friend-or-stranger boyfriend she was texting?!

` **me**`  
`_2:44_` `or anyone really youre the only one`

ABORT ABORT.

` **me**`  
`_2:44_` `i mean first time!!`

That made it sound like she planned to do it _more_ than once!

` **me**`  
`_2:44_` `i mean only time!!!`  
`_2:44_` `i mean it wont happen again!!!!!`

Marinette groaned out loud and thumped her head several times on the bar, ignoring the bemused look the server gave her. She'd really done it now. She was _never_ going to drink again.

Her phone buzzed.

` **♥ beau gosse ♥**`  
`_2:45_` `well, that's too bad`

* * *

Adrien stared at his phone.

_That's too bad._

What. The _fuck._ Had he _typed._

` **me**`  
`_2:46_` `that you're losing!`  
`_2:46_` `losing sucks`  
`_2:46_` `a lot`  
`_2:46_` `especially when dares are involved`  
`_2:46_` `i would know`

_Just stop talking **for fuck's sake** Adrien._

`**me**`  
`_2:46_` `ANYWAY`

* * *

Despite the six additional texts that came in, Marinette's eyes remained glued to the first one, her stomach twisting and curling in on itself. The feeling was, strangely, not entirely unpleasant.

Her fingers were already halfway through a reply before her ale-addled brain caught up and called a halt to read what she was typing.

_`so does that mean you're volunteering for all my dirty texting nee`_

Nope. Nope. Nope nope nope nope. Marinette mashed the backspace key, staunchly ignoring the sly whisper in the back of her mind that encouraged her to _just send it, c'mon, it can't make things any worse at this point~_ Just because she'd messed up her first several texts to Alya didn't mean she couldn't follow the spirit of her advice, if not the letter.

In a desperate attempt for distraction, Marinette forced her lecherous brain to read the rest of Adrien's texts. The more moral part of her conscience (which sounded an awful lot like Tikki on nights like this) breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn't embarrassed herself when Adrien had so obviously meant something different.

Then the actual _meaning_ sank in.

` **me**`  
`_2:48_` `you would know?`  
`_2:49_` `oh god did you take one of kims dares`  
`_2:49_` `is that what happened`  
`_2:49_` `WE THOUGHT NINO WARNED YOU`

` **♥ beau gosse ♥**`  
`_2:50_` `he did`  
`_2:50_` `kim is CONVINCING, okay`  
`_2:50_` `dares suck`  
`_2:51_` `i could've been standing somewhere visible naked for an hour`  
`_2:51_` `still, dares suck`

The noise that escaped Marinette this time sounded like nothing so much as a low pitched whine. There was a feeble, pitiful attempt to stop any imaginings of a naked Adrien standing around somewhere half-private, but it died almost before it started.

As if to rebuke her for even trying, her thoughts expanded on what might have happened if it was at night and Ladybug just happened to be passing by on patrol. Seeing a flash of something pale in the corner of her eye, swinging down to investigate, only to find a beautiful helpless boy with green eyes clad only in moonlight and—

Expression grim, Marinette tossed back the dregs of her drink and slammed the glass down on the bar, then shoved to her feet. Leaving the server a sizeable tip, she made a straight escape to the bathroom.

The room was blessedly empty, without an attendant or any other female patrons. Marinette beelined for the nearest stall and closed the door behind her before yanking open her purse.

"Tikki!"

Blinking big, sleepy blue eyes at her, Tikki let out a tiny yawn and a stretch. "What's wrong, Marinette?"

Marinette shook her phone at the kwami of luck. _"Adrien is going to kill me!"_

With another blink, Tikki floated into the air to get a better look at the screen. "Maybe it's time you went home..."

The half-amused, half-chiding tone of Tikki's voice didn't help Marinette's mood any. "No way!! I can't go home until this is totally sorted out and Adrien doesn't think I'm a— wait he's still waiting for me to reply!!"

Tikki sighed, amusement growing despite herself as Marinette pulled the phone back in and resumed her frantic typing.

* * *

Adrien was slightly less worried when she took a while to respond this time, curling over onto his side and shivering at the memory of that cold night.

He had learned his lesson. _Never again._ Pride was not worth having your junk frozen like that. It just wasn't.

He had a few more minutes of twiddling his phone and trying not to think about Marinette's _wet on the outside_ comment before she typed again, and only then did it occur to him that he had just handed her some extremely blackmail-worthy information.

He preemptively cringed before he read her text, only to let out a small sigh of relief at her words.

` **Marinette**`  
`_2:58_` `they really do hahaha haha`

` **me**`  
`_2:59_` `yeah`  
`_2:59_` `actually`  
`_3:00_` `could i ask you not to mention that incident to anyone?`  
`_3:00_` `i mean not that you would`  
`_3:00_` `i mean`

He buried his face in his pillow and groaned. Now he had just _told her_ that was blackmail-worthy.

Not that he thought _Ladybug_ would blackmail him, but...

Slightly desperate to change the subject, he grabbed onto the one thing he did know about where she was at right now.

` **me**`  
`_3:01_` `so how go the games?`

* * *

"Marinette..."

"I'm serious, Tikki!"

"Wasn't Alya supposed to be helping you with this?"

"She went home," Marinette grumbled, not looking up from her phone as she continued to scroll through Adrien's texts. Tikki flew higher to get between her face and the screen, demanding her attention.

"That's just more reason for _you_ to go home, too!" she insisted, laying her tiny paws on the tip of Marinette's nose. "If you're there with Alya, she can help you sort this all out."

Marinette hesitated. "I... guess that makes sense..."

"Plus, you've already had enough to drink and Adrien will worry about you less if you're safe at home," Tikki added, matter-of-fact. Marinette sighed.

"Okay, okay, I'll go home..."

"Great!" With a cheerful smile, Tikki flew back into her bag. "I'll be right here if you need me."

Marinette smiled. "Thanks, Tikki," she said earnestly. Snapping the purse closed, she exited the bathroom and climbed the stairs back up to the bar. It wasn't until she was out on the street that she looked at Adrien's last text.

` **♥ beau gosse ♥**`  
`_3:01_` `so how go the games?`

Pinching the tip of her tongue between her teeth, she started to type as she walked.

` **me**`  
`_3:10_` `of course I would never tell anyone!!`

There was no way she wanted anyone _else_ envisioning Adrien naked on a rooftop, for starters.

` **me**`  
`_3:11_` `and right the games uh not so much any more, im heading home now`

* * *

Adrien let out a tiny sigh of relief at Marinette's reassurances. Of course she wouldn't. That just wasn't like her.

(It was possible Adrien had spent too long talking to people who absolutely would use that as blackmail material — hello, Kim and Alya.)

And then...

` **Marinette**`  
`_3:11_` `and right the games uh not so much any more, im heading home now`

Something loosened in his chest, a tiny knot of anxiety he hadn't even realized was there.

He'd heard tales of postgame. Marinette could take care of herself, no doubt, but, well...

He'd heard locker room talk.

He was glad she was leaving before anything worse than being forced to send a friend a naughty text happened.

` **me**`  
`_3:11_` `oh good`  
`_3:12_` `no more dares, then :P`  
`_3:12_` `do you have a ride home?`

` **Marinette**`  
`_3:13_` `nah the bars really close to my dorm so I'm just walking`

` **me**`  
`_3:13_` `i should probably let you focus on that then`

And he should.

But...

` **me**`  
`_3:15_` `text me when you get home safe?`  
`_3:16_` `i don't want alya to disown me if you disappear and she finds out i didn't launch a search party`

(It was easier to think about Alya's wrath than what he would do if she disappeared.

She was _Ladybug_ and he shouldn't worry, but...)

* * *

Marinette smiled at the concern shining through her screen. That was just like her kitty. Just like Adrien.

` **me**`  
`_3:16_` `yessir`

Slipping her phone into her pocket, Marinette took his advice and focused on her path. Not that she was particularly worried — since Ladybug and Chat Noir had begun patrolling Paris years ago, assaults had dropped significantly. And even if they hadn't... well, having Tikki with her was pretty good insurance.

Marinette took a deep breath of the cool early morning air, letting it clear some of the buzz in her head. She still felt like squirming in place, but the worst of her embarrassment was fading. Okay, so she'd mortified herself in front of her crime fighting partner and long-time crush (not that he knew he was either), but they'd laughed it off, right? No problem. Adrien had even shared something embarrassing in return.

...Maybe she could get another secret out of him if she faked another game of dare. It might be worth the extra mortification...

_Leeeeet's make sure to talk to Alya about that one._

Right, Alya. Who she needed to talk to ASAP, and who she was going to reorder in her contacts _so this would never happen again._

~~At least not accidentally.~~

...Yep, she really needed to talk to Alya.

It didn't take very long at all to reach her residence. Marinette fished her key out to let herself in the main doors, then hauled herself up the creaky stairs to her floor, crept down the hall—

—and was met with a tie still hanging on their room's doorknob.

Marinette stared at the door.

Turned the doorknob. Rattled it to no effect.

Quietly banged her head against the wood a few times (mindful of flatmates who might have class in the morning).

And got out her phone.

She took her time carefully picking through her contacts, wanting to make extra sure this text got to its intended recipient.

` **me**`  
`_3:28_` `alya`  
`_3:29_` `alya wake up i know your in there`  
`_3:29_` `alya!`  
`_3:29_` `alya wake up!`

Tapping her foot, Marinette stood in the hall and waited.

And waited.

Tried the doorknob again.

Waited some more.

When she'd waited long enough for her phone's screen to fall asleep, she swiped it awake and stabbed out a considerably less careful set of texts.

* * *

Adrien smiled at the text, keeping a yawn clamped behind his teeth as he let his head drop back to the pillow.

He could imagine Marinette snapping off a saucy little salute, a cock of her hip with teasing grin in place. He tapped the corner of his phone against his lips, the image sitting warm in his gut, snagging at his heart, tugging a little sigh from his lungs.

She could be adorable when she wanted to be.

And when she didn't want to be. And when she didn't care either way. And all the time, actually.

Just, you know. _Especially_ when she wanted to be.

It was a talent.

He let himself drift, confident that she would text him in fairly short order. The noise had finally, _finally_ started to die off (it had only taken seven and a half hours), but Adrien didn't doubt it would take until classes started tomorrow morning for the celebrations to stop entirely. In the meantime, he would keep himself just awake enough to know whether or not Marinette texted him in the next half-hour, then, hopefully, catch a few hours of sleep before his next class tomorrow morning—

Or, no, wait. Tomorrow afternoon. Literature had been cancelled, hadn't it?

Even better.

Adrien was just realizing that his thoughts had become worryingly disconnected and that he should probably set a timer (or risk Alya's wrath coming down on his head anyway, good intentions be damned) when his phone buzzed.

He jolted upright, gasping in shock and feeling sleep slip out of his grasp, leaving his chest hollow for the second time that night.

Lovely.

Numb fingers fumbled with his screen, bones aching in protest of his second sudden waking, and his phone buzzed again before he'd managed to draw his unlock pattern.

He got his phone open on luck alone and squinted through the brightness, willing the dark smudges on the screen into recognizable shapes.

When they finally did, he barked out a breathless laugh that was more acknowledgement of the absurdity of the situation than honest amusement (though there was some of that too).

` **Marinette**`  
`_3:34_` `alya you left the chain on and i CANT GET IN`  
`_3:34_` `we talked about this!!!!`

` **me**`  
`_3:36_` `maybe i should permanently change my name`  
`_3:37_` `Alya Agreste has a nice ring to it`

(Not as nice as some _other_ name combinations involving the family name 'Agreste,' but...)

(The name "Emma", overheard in a debate about kids names between Marinette and Nino, had stuck with him, but _he digressed._ )

` **me**`  
`_3:37_` `it would even satisfy my mother's obsession with alliteration`  
`_3:38_` `you *almost* got home safe i'm guessing?`

He could almost _hear_ the groan in Marinette's reply.

` **Marinette**`  
`_3:38_` `yes`  
`_3:38_` `i am so SO sorry adrien`

He snorted into his pillow, the ache fading somewhat. The groan and the shamed dip of her head, and, maybe if he was very lucky, a faint blush on her cheeks.

( _Adorable_ , like he said. It felt less like a betrayal to think that now that he knew she was Ladybug, but she always had been.)

` **me**`  
`_3:39_` `it's okay it's okay XD`  
`_3:39_` `need any help?`

` **Marinette**`  
`_3:39_` `no i dont want to wake anyone up`  
`_3:39_` `guess ill just sleep in the commons room X-(`

` **me**`  
`_3:40_` `i'm awake`

Adrien's stomach flipped, staring at the text he'd sent before he could think it through.

That was already half an offer, wasn't it?

And he wouldn't mind having Marinette stay with him at all.

He knew for a fact that the relatively new couch he'd bought shortly after moving into this apartment was a perfectly acceptable place to sleep (he usually ended up passing out there playing Call Of Duty on Saturday nights), so he could give her his bed...

Yeah, that could work.

` **me**`  
`_3:41_` `not like i was sleeping anyway`  
`_3:41_` `you could stay with me`  
`_3:41_` `if you wanted`  
`_3:42_` `my furniture is way more comfortable than the common room's`

He'd _sat_ on those common room couches, thank you very much. He had no desire for any further acquaintance with them.

(He tried very hard not to think of Marinette laying where he was right now, and wondered if maybe he should sleep in the hallway instead.)

` **Marinette**`  
`_3:44_` `.....are you sure? alya says i snore`

Adrien had several opinions on this information, most of which boiled down to _that's still adorable_ and _we'll call it training_.

(For, you know, when he finally managed to convince Ladybug that they were meant to spend the rest of their lives together.)

The last two were, _well that's kind of inconvenient_ and _Literature was cancelled anyway_.

He identified the last as the only socially acceptable response to this statement.

` **me**`  
`_3:44_` `eh, my morning class was cancelled`  
`_3:45_` `do your worst`

` **Marinette**`  
`_3:48_` `okay... ill be there in 10`

Adrien let out a little sigh of relief.

` **me**`  
`_3:48_` `see you :)`

And then he realized he hadn't changed his sheets in a week and there was still dirty laundry on the floor, and sucked that sigh right back in, exchanging it for a very quiet, very _emphatic_ curse.

He rolled out of bed onto the floor and dove for his linen closet.

* * *

Marinette strode through the night like a robot soldier: head up, shoulders back, arms stiff, legs straight and unbending. It was the only way she could keep herself moving forward to Adrien's place without breaking out into squeals, giggles, jigs, or some other form of mini-hysterics with every other step.

Steps that were taking her to _Adrien's apartment_ so she could _spend the night_.

(Or more like the remainder of the morning at this point, but semantics.)

It had taken a lot of whispered coaxing from Tikki, but in the end, for all her internal flailing, it was kind of a no-brainer. Glean a few hours' sleep on a wooden plank of a couch, only to grump at what would undoubtedly be a chipper and very satisfied roommate in the morning (and Nino's half-hearted apologies), or doze on a much comfier couch and wake up to the face of her (very handsome) crush?

Assuming there was going to _be_ any dozing going on. Which was the sticking point.

It wasn't like she was concerned about Adrien's behaviour. He had always been a perfect gentleman even when flirting as Chat, and she was pretty sure he didn't know _how_ to take advantage of someone. She felt like he'd have an aneurysm if he tried.

No, the behaviour she was concerned about was _hers_.

While the past hour and change had done wonders for her sobriety, she still felt a little tipsy, still felt a little daring (and _still_ found herself wondering about that _damn zipper_ ). She wasn't entirely convinced of her ability to stay a room apart from a sleeping Adrien without saying, doing, or thinking something inappropriate.

Actually, keeping her thoughts appropriate was a lost cause. Better to stick to just curbing her speech and actions.

God, what was she going to do? She had enough trouble controlling herself around Adrien when she was 100% sober. Discovering he was her dorky, adoring, pun-loving feline partner had helped somewhat, but it was so much easier to be direct and businesslike when she was wearing Ladybug's spots. As Marinette it was a whole other ball game, _especially_ when he was being sweet and considerate.

She needed a plan. She needed some kind of safety system that would prevent her from doing anything too heinous. She—

—She was at his front door and had pushed his buzzer without thinking.

Marinette let out a muffled yelp and leaped back, seriously considering making a dive for the landscaped bushes out front. _She needed more time!_

* * *

By the time Adrien heard the buzzer, he'd managed to shove all his dirty clothes in his hamper and change his bedsheet. His comforter and pillows were still unchanged, but there didn't seem to be time for that. He'd have to ask if she minded.

He dropped the pillowcases (that he'd just retrieved as his next highest priority) onto the clean bedsheets, and rushed to buzz her in and open his apartment door.

The very first thing he noticed when he saw her was that she was, indeed, still in those sinfully tight skinny jeans.

(` _Now I'm wet on the outside, too._`)

(No, brain! Bad brain! Shh!)

Then he ripped his eyes away from her legs (her thighs, _holy shit_ her thighs), fixed them _firmly_ on her face, and smiled.

"Hey," he greeted, voice thready with lack of use. He cleared his throat and leaned against the doorjamb. "Hey. Fancy meeting you here."

He was _definitely_ sleeping in the hallway tonight.

"Hey!" Marinette squeaked, wishing she'd remembered sometime _before_ that very moment that _she was wearing jeans covered in beer stains_ , and probably reeked of booze to boot. She clapped both hands over the dark spot as casually as she could and forced a smile. "S-sorry about all this."

It was only then that she properly _looked_ at Adrien— and nearly turned tail to run back home. He looked tired, with dark rings under his eyes, but that didn't take away from the green of his irises or the artfully tousled look of his hair (she almost expected to see cat ears peeking out).

Or the line of his collarbone showing through his unbuttoned collar. Or the way his flannel pants hung low and lazy on his hips.

Marinette bit her lip _hard_ and forced her eyes to meet his. Still dangerous, but the lesser of several evils given the situation.

_Blue._

Fixing his eyes on her face was a _mistake_.

Adrien managed to stop drowning in her eyes only to get sidetracked staring at her mouth. That went on for a good three seconds before he realized she was standing outside of his apartment at 4 AM in tight, damp clothing and probably somewhere past tipsy (if the smell was any indication).

"Not a problem," he said breathlessly, leaning back to invite her in, trying not to do anything creepy like search for her scent under all the alcohol. "Come in."

He was pretty sure his ears were turning red.

At least he wasn't alone in that. Marinette scuttled in after him, ducking her head in an attempt to hide her cheeks' own brilliant shade of pink, and managed a half-mumbled, "Thanks, Adrien."

You know what would be a bad thing for him to do? Memorize the way she said his name.

So he didn't. Mostly.

He didn't look down as she passed, either, so that was two for him.

The flush on her cheeks, on the other hand...

Adrien swallowed and distracted himself with logistics.

"I set up the bed for you," he said, almost automatically, then glanced down despite himself.

(He wasn't sure if that left his score one out of three or none out of three, but it wasn't good either way.)

Skinny jeans. Good _god_ did he love skinny jeans.

Which was to say, he loved seeing her in them, but he was pretty sure they weren't very comfortable to sleep in. "Should I get you something to change into?"

"I can't take your bed!" Marinette squawked first, half out of reflexive guilt and half out of _I'm already more than half dead and **sleeping in your bed** will finish the job._ "I-I'm fine on the couch!"

Adrien stared at her, a note of horror creeping into his tone as he spoke. "You just walked for almost an hour while _drunk_. You're _still_ drunk. I'm not making you sleep on the couch!"

"You aren't _making_ me do anything!" Marinette propped her hands on her hips. "And I'm not drunk! Any more! And even if I was, that would just be _more_ reason not to sleep in your bed and make it smell like beer!"

She nodded at her own arguments, as if the issue were decided. "I'm sleeping on the couch."

Adrien inhaled, looked at the set of her jaw, and exhaled.

"I'll go get the spare blankets," he conceded. He didn't actually mind his bed smelling like beer (he had access to these very handy inventions called washing machines), but...

 _Stubborn and irresistible._ Two things about her that hadn't changed one bit for as long as he'd known her.

Emphasis on the stubborn.

(Double emphasis on the irresistible.)

"I didn't hear," he called back over his shoulder as he left her to go through his linen closet again, the hinges of the door squeaking. "Did you want a change of clothes?"

"Oh, sure." Marinette pulled on the hem of her fitted t-shirt, which she'd been wearing all day. "I'd love to get out of these clothes. —I mean-!! To change into your clothes— _Imeantogetintosomecleanclothes!_ "

Adrien, arms full of quilts and spare pillows, nearly fell flat on his face.

_What._

(Marinette in no clothes, Marinette in _his_ clothes, Marinette in only one of his old dress shirts and a smirk while stalking towards him on hands and knees—)

He took a deep breath, pushed away the parade of images that had jumped to the forefront of his mind, sternly reminded himself that Marinette was a walking Freudian slip and _did not_ mean the things she said, and dumped the bedding on the couch.

"Then I'll... go get those for you," he said, strained, and fled.

"Thanks," Marinette said in a weak voice. As soon as Adrien was out of sight, she sank onto the couch and buried her face in her hands for a few minutes of self pity.

Then she stood up, carefully placed her purse (and Tikki) on the table, and set about arranging a couch nest, because sitting there picturing herself in Adrien's clothes _was not helping_.

* * *

In his bedroom, Adrien found himself in something of a bind.

It had finally worked through his sleep-deprived, Marinette-dazed mind that he was offering to let her sleep in his clothes.

Which meant Marinette (who was Ladybug, whom he'd loved unconditionally and mostly unrequited for the past five years) was going to be spending the night _in his clothes._

Sleeping.

With his clothes on her bare skin.

Only one room away.

(No matter how much it grated on his sense of propriety, it was probably a good thing she'd insisted on the couch. He wasn't sure he'd be able to take the thought of her _in his bed_ as well.)

(That would be a _little too close_ to how many of his fantasies began.)

At this point he was realizing that it didn't really matter whether or not she meant those little slips — he'd offered her his clothes and she'd accepted, and now he had to decide which of his wardrobe items would get the honor.

A.K.A. which of them would be the most comfortable for her to sleep in, and which would be least likely to give him premature heart-failure to see her in tomorrow morning.

After a little too much internal debate, he finally decided on his other pair of flannel bottoms and a worn old t-shirt left over from his lycée days. It was the softest of the clothing he had on hand, bar what he was wearing right now, and should also be big enough on her that he wouldn't be in danger of braining himself on a door frame if she so much as stretched.

Hopefully.

(Ladybug was going to be _wearing his clothes._ )

(Forget tripping all over himself tomorrow morning, it would be a miracle if he managed to sleep at all _tonight._ )

He came back to Marinette making his couch her own ( _don't think about it, **don't**_ ), and offered her the bundle of cloth.

"These good?"

Marinette jumped as if he'd shouted at her, dropping the pillow she'd been fussing with, and spun around.

"Yes! Thanks," she near-yelped, taking the bundle without looking at it and backing towards the bathroom with a sheepish grin. "I'll just— you know— Aheh!"

With that display of eloquence she fled into the bathroom and shut the door, intent on changing before she could actually _think_ about what she was doing.

That intent got derailed when she unfolded the bundle and was greeted by a familiar black t-shirt with coloured bands across the chest, obviously well-worn and loved.

 _It just **had** to be the shirt he was wearing when we first met,_ she thought morosely, now fully resigned to not getting any sleep whatsoever. Squeezing her eyes shut, she stripped off her outfit as fast as she could (maybe stumbling once or twice as she fought her way out of those _damn jeans_ ) and into the clothes Adrien had left her.

They were just as soft and full of his scent as she'd imagined. Marinette grabbed two fistfuls of the shirt's hem to keep herself from doing something creepy, like pull the collar up to take a deep sniff.

Taking a deep breath anyway to (poorly) ease her nerves, Marinette gathered her day clothes into a messy ball and peeked out the door to locate her host.

Adrien, having hoped to make an escape before he was forced to actually see what she looked like wearing his clothes (it would only spare him a few hours of that knowledge, he knew, but that was a few hours grace before the rest of his life spent knowing exactly what she looked like _wearing his clothes_ ), but too polite to leave his guest alone in his home without warning, was absently straightening the shelves.

(Years of living with Nathalie had ingrained the concept that any debris left out would be forever lost, so Adrien kept his space well-ordered mostly out of compulsion, clothes being the exception. Nathalie couldn't simply make clothing disappear in a _designer's_ home, after all. Gabriel would _notice._ )

"Done?" he asked, not looking at her, like maybe that would keep his heart from dancing the jig it was practicing right then. "Water's there, you know where the bathroom is..."

He steeled his nerves and glanced somewhere to the right of her, and didn't know whether to curse or thank his peripheral vision. "Anything else?"

"No, no!" Marinette insisted, not sure herself whether to be relieved or disappointed that Adrien didn't seem to be looking right _at_ her. She took the opportunity to inch sideways towards the couch. "I've kept you up long enough already, haha, so, um. G'night!"

Diving for her blanket nest without waiting for a response, Marinette threw the covers up around herself and immediately played dead. Er, asleep.

Adrien's gaze snapped to the flurry of movement, blinking when he realized he was now staring at the back of a mussed head of black hair and a patchwork cocoon.

"Uh, a-all right then?" he said, tone taking on an uncertain lilt towards the end of the statement. "Um. Goodnight."

And with that, he turned off the lights and went to bed.

Or rather, he lay down and started flipping through his phone's apps in an effort to distract himself from the thought of _Marinette, here, sleeping in his clothes._

It wasn't going too well.

He suffered three losses in Temple Runner that could be put down entirely to it occurring to him, all over again, that Marinette was most definitely wearing his shirt—

Unless she'd taken it off.

( _Soft peach skin against the backdrop of his black couch, nestled in his quilts..._ )

—and clicked his phone off with a little more force than strictly necessary.

He rolled onto his stomach, burying his burning face into his pillow and groaning. She'd been here for all of — he checked; _4:11_ — ten minutes, and it felt like hours.

Hours of desperately striving to ignore the fact of her presence, to not listen for the sound of her breathing through his cracked door, to not give into the itch under his skin. It almost felt like he was sick, running a fever, heart still running too fast and breath still hitching and body getting just a little too hot whenever he strayed a little too far down the wrong path.

Slowly, guiltily, he swiped back into their conversation from earlier tonight.

` **Marinette**`  
`_2:13_` `ok im texting you now like i promised instead of drunktexting adrien and telling him how badly i want his cock tonight.`

He read the text again. And then again. And again and again and again, mouth going a little drier, the room getting a little hotter each time.

What if...

He pressed his face back into the pillow, turning off his screen again.

_What if she'd meant it?_

(Dangerous, dangerous roads, but...)

He turned his face out of his pillow so he was no longer smothering himself with it, and unlocked his phone once again.

` _2:35_` `now im wet on the outside too`

He swallowed.

It wasn't... _She_ wasn't...

_She'd just changed into his clothes._

Adrien muffled a near-silent, heartfelt groan in his pillow, giving up on not imagining the rub of her thighs against the seam of her borrowed pants, damp underwear and—

No.

Stop.

_Stop._

_But what if she had meant it?_ he wondered, almost furiously dragging himself past the idea of her _in his clothes_ and _wet_. What if Ladybug had wanted him?

What if there hadn't been any dares involved? What if he'd somehow, _miraculously_ caught her eye? What if she'd just...

Wanted _him?_

What if all that flail had been worry over revealing too much, instead of simple embarrassment over her tendencies?

 _What if, what if, what if,_ he had a hundred of those, and each left him a little more hungry and heartsick and longing and overheated than the last, and nothing he could do about any of them, except maybe ask.

He could ask her.

He nearly laughed aloud at the thought.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard, almost, almost tempted to type _did you mean it?_

Almost.

She'd probably laugh at him harder than he was laughing at himself.

But no, no she wouldn't. She was Ladybug, and she was Marinette, and she was thoughtless, but never once had he known her to be cruel. Just like he'd never known her to resort to embarrassing blackmail, like he'd never known her to back down from a fight she'd set her mind on, just like...

She might laugh a little, like he had.

It was a ridiculous notion, after all.

_`did you mean it?` _

He watched the words appear on the screen, typed with steady fingers, wondering _would it ever mean something to you if it did?_

_Could I ever earn that?_

_Would you ever let me?_

Ridiculous.

He shut his eyes, buried his face in his pillow once again, and clicked off his phone, tossing onto the bed beside him.

Might as well try to sleep.

* * *

Marinette's eyes had adjusted to the darkness of her blanket nest and she'd just begun to relax her first few hairs when her phone buzzed.

Cautiously (and a little reluctantly, because the _quilts_ smelled like Adrien too and being bundled up in warmth and his scent was the next best thing to her daydreams of being snuggled up with him) she poked her head out of her refuge. Adrien was gone, of course, having vanished into his bedroom. The room was dark except for the moonlight and city light coming in through the windows, the glow of the nightlight Adrien kept in his bathroom, and the blinking notification light from her phone on the table.

She'd never seen Adrien's apartment in the dark before. The sharp shadows made it look strange, but she found she didn't feel uncomfortable or unwelcome in the least. In fact, she was sorely tempted to roll over and ignore her phone altogether, go back to her Eau d'Adrien scented fantasies and attempts to forget that he was just one room away with his collarbone peeking out of his shirt collar.

...But there was a chance Alya had woken up and was wondering where she was. With a sigh, Marinette extended an arm from her cozy haven and grabbed her phone, drawing it inside her cocoon to check her texts.

There _was_ a message, but it wasn't from Alya.

` **♥ beau gosse ♥**`  
`_4:15_` `did you mean it?`

Marinette's heart jumped into her throat and refused to be swallowed back down.

_`did you mean it?` _

Her initial, panicked impulse was to play dumb. It would be simple enough to respond with _mean what?_ and dodge any more incriminating questions, even though she knew very well what he was talking about. Or better yet, she could play dead — er, asleep — and just not respond at all.

Her fingers hovered over the power button...

_`did you mean it?` _

...then slowly drew away.

For several minutes Marinette silently reread the text, along with all the texts that had led up to it and every other question that might lie under it, and everything that could come of it.

_`did you mean it?` _

Then she began to type.

* * *

His phone, buzzing and interrupting his attempts at sleep for the third time tonight, narrowly avoided getting defenestrated out of pure frustration.

Phones were replaceable, Adrien reasoned. And he didn't need the alarm today. He could pick another model up before his evening class. It was about time for a replacement anyway, right? He'd had this one for four years now. That was about how long one was expected to keep a phone, right?

And if it was gone, he might actually have a chance at sleeping.

Not much of a chance, granted, but probably more than if his phone was sitting somewhere audible, rather on the cobblestone three stories below.

Although...

It had been Marinette texting him all those times.

It probably wasn't her this time — probably Nino or Alya realizing neither of them knew where Marinette was, because why would Marinette text him if she could just speak up and he'd hear her? — but maybe he should have mercy on the poor piece of tech for faithfully bringing him word of Marinette this fine night.

(Not to mention that he'd lose tonight's text logs if he lost his phone, too.)

Adrien heaved a sigh, picked up his phone, and opened his new messages, already preparing to tell whoever it was that yes Marinette is safe, _no thanks to you_ , seriously, _look after your friends better_ —

` **Marinette**`  
`_4:18_` `what would you do if i did?`

The bottom of Adrien's stomach dropped out.

Slowly, he raised his eyes to the message just above it.

It wasn't, as he'd assumed, `_see you :)_`

It was `_did you mean it?_`

It sent.

The text _sent_.

The text he'd forgotten to safely backspace had _sent._

Fuck.

_Fuck._

Adrien dimly realized he'd stopped breathing and inhaled a shaking breath, entire body flashing hot and cold.

_`what would you do if i did?` _

And she hadn't even had the grace to tell him yes or no either way.

Another shuddering breath, and he swallowed.

What would he do?

Pass out, maybe. Wonder just how much of it she meant, definitely. Beg her to take whatever she wanted — it was hers anyway. Walk into the living room and kiss her, kiss her, kiss her until she folded him into her nest and straddled his hips and _took him_.

Offer a trade; anything she wanted for the chance to prove that he could be _it_ , that he could be hers and she could be his and they would work. That they would be beautiful.

Say she could ride him wherever she wanted if she let him taste her smile, her laugh. That she could take him and tie him up and fuck him if she'd go out to dinner with him, if she'd be there the next morning in his clothes, if she'd take his bed with him in it and let him find out first hand just how badly she snored, if she'd wake him up with her morning breath and sleep-scratchy voice poking fun at the way he slept.

Say she could do whatever the fuck she wanted with him if she'd move in with him, cook breakfast and hold hands with him, get a cat or a dog or both with him and plan a future together.

Pretend he wasn't already hers and see if she wanted him enough to give a little of herself in return.

No.

He wouldn't.

Everything else aside, anything he said to that effect would be a lie, after all.

But knowing... _knowing_ whether or not she wanted him that much... whether she wanted him at _all_...

He swallowed again. Remembered, belatedly, to breathe. Touched the phone to his flushed lips in thought, then typed.

` **me**`  
`_4:20_` `i'd wonder how much of it you meant`

He waited, heartbeat ringing in his ears, counting the seconds to the next buzz. _12, 13, 14..._

* * *

`**me**`  
`_4:20_` `and what if I said 'all of it'?`

Marinette curled up into a tighter ball with every passing second, alternately thrilling with excitement and dread. She'd tried, she'd _really tried_ to do the smart thing. She'd sat and chewed her lip and asked herself what Alya would say if she was here. But having everything of Adrien's on her and around her and filling her lungs with each breath had won out— and okay, maybe the lingering beer, sleep deprivation, and years of lovesick longing and sexual frustration had something to do with it too.

It was too late now, either way. She'd opened the door, and now she was waiting on tenterhooks for Adrien's reply, half-afraid and half-hopeful that he might walk into the living room at any moment.

She pressed her phone to her forehead, and remembered to breathe.

* * *

All of it.

What if she said all of it.

Ha.

Ahaha _ha_.

Adrien swallowed a broken whine, pressing his hips against the mattress.

If she said _all of it_ that would mean she really was wet in his clothes.

Marinette — _Ladybug_ — was wet. _In his clothes._

He'd never be able to wear them again. He might never be able to _look_ at them again if he saw her in them tomorrow morning, if he had a visual for the fabric stretched tight between her thighs, for her bare hand resting there.

God.

_Fuck._

It took him a minute to stop drowning in that thought for long enough to realize that she was probably still waiting for a reply.

What if she said 'all of it'?

He would die. In a dozen different ways, big and small. And once that was over, then...

* * *

`**♥ beau gosse ♥**`  
`_4:21_` `i'd... wonder what else you thought about me`

Marinette's forgotten breath came out in a soft whine that ended on a hiss. This was it. This was where she found out whether she ruined her partner's opinion of her forever or if all her years reading trashy romance stories paid off. This was where she found out if she could be a sexting swan instead of an ugly duckling. Whether she could woo her beau with words alone. This was where she found out whether the beer was still working.

This was where she wished she _had_ another beer.

Patching her courage together from scraps of warm quilts, clean scents, soft shirts, deep feelings, and lingering alcoholic buzz, Marinette took a deep breath... and channelled her inner lush.

` **me**`  
`_4:23_` `i'd think youre pretty cute`  
`_4:23_` `and not cute like i wanna pinch your cheeks kinda way`  
`_4:24_` `or at least not the cheeks on your face`  
`_4:24_` `cute like id wanna push you up against a wall`

` **♥ beau gosse ♥**`  
`_4:26_` `oh`  
`_4:27_` `i`  
`_4:27_` `i think about that`  
`_4:27_` `sometimes`  
`_4:28_` `you pushing me against a wall, i mean`

* * *

Adrien set down his phone, not letting go of it as he inhaled, exhaled, and inhaled again. It failed to steady him one bit.

It wasn't a lie.

He _had_ thought about it.

He'd thought about it a lot.

(Kissing Ladybug in thanks for saving him only to end up pinned up against a wall with his legs around her waist while she devoured his mouth like she wanted to crawl into his skin.)

(Ladybug trapping his wrists against the wall and grinding her hips against his ass as she cornered him in some filthy alley, teeth grazing his nape as she stroked the bulge below his trailing belt.)

(A thigh hitched around his hips, his claws tracing the straining seams of her jeans, every hot inch of her pressed up against every inch of him while she purred _mon minou_ against his lips.)

(Her hands in his back pockets as she drew him into a forgotten corner and sat in his lap, laughed into his mouth and whispered _did you really think you could hide from me, kitty?_ )

A lot.

And the mere suggestion that she'd thought anything like what he'd thought was...

Was...

_God._

He was startled from his fantasies by the fantastical _reality_ of another text buzz from Marinette.

` **Marinette**`  
`_4:29_` `oh yeah?`  
`_4:29_` `what else do you think about, hot stuff?`

_'Hot stuff'?_

`**me**`  
`_4:30_` `you`

He let out a stilted breath. If this actually was all hypothetical...

` **Marinette**`  
`_4:30_` `what about me?`

He shut his eyes. That was an invitation, wasn't it?

He still hesitated before typing, because what _did_ he think about Marinette?

` **me**`  
`_4:32_` `i think about...`  
`_4:32_` `you smiling`  
`_4:33_` `you in those jeans you were wearing earlier`  
`_4:33_` `you in my clothes`

(It hadn't been more than a passing fantasy before, but _now..._ )

(He was pretty sure he wouldn't be getting off to anything else for _months._ )

` **me**`  
`_4:33_` `i wonder if you'd mind me pushing you against a wall`

* * *

Marinette was biting her lip so hard she was amazed she didn't taste blood.

(Although she was definitely going to have marks. She started to suppress the thought of what Adrien would think of her, seeing her in the morning with mussed hair and bruised lips, then realized with a frisson of glee that _she didn't have to_ right now.)

It took her several moments to extract herself from daydreams of a cool wall against her back and a hot body against her front, Adrien's (Chat's ( _Adrien's_ )) hands on her hips and his thigh hitched high between her legs as he made a mess of her neck with hungry tenderness...

But delicious as the image was, the text conversation she was entangled in held the promise of being even better — not in the least because it was _real_.

` **me**`  
`_4:34_` `well you do make me smile a lot`

And what did it say, that Adrien had been noticing _Marinette's_ smile?

` **me**`  
`_4:34_` `and you already got the jeans and clothes`

She made a mental note to make _sure_ to save her jeans from the beer stains so she could wear them again. And then wear them more often.

Maybe just wear them all the time, every day.

` **me**`  
`_4:34_` `3 out of 4 is a pretty good place to start, dont you think?`

Cool and casual as her words were, Marinette was grateful Adrien couldn't see her from his bedroom. She probably looked anything _but_ cool and seductive, bundled in quilts and gripping her phone millimetres from her wide eyes like it was a drug and she was a junkie looking for a fix. She imagined Adrien was much more relaxed, probably stretched out in his sheets with low-lidded eyes, maybe hugging his pillow with an attractive flush high on his cheeks—

` **♥ beau gosse ♥**`  
`_4:35_` `yeah`  
`_4:35_` `and the fourth?`

_Breathe, Marinette. Remember to keep breathing, breathing is important._

Breathing _was_ important, but it was getting more and more difficult with every text she received, never mind actually crafting responses. Marinette reached deep inside for every last bit of her superhero sass, calling on all the familiar comfort she got from bantering with Chat. This was just a step up from that, right?

A massive step, maybe, but still a step.

` **me**`  
`_4:35_` `depends. what would you do if you had me against a wall?`

She waited one small eternity, and then her phone buzzed.

` **♥ beau gosse ♥**`  
`_4:36_` `probably kiss you, if you'd let me`

* * *

Welp.

Those were his cards on the table. Most of them, anyway.

(The way she'd grinned at him the last time he'd somehow managed to get her back against a wall during one of their sparring sessions, staff across her shoulders...)

Don't think about it.

(The sly smile she'd flashed him by accident, looking up just as she was finished giggling at something Alya had said, the one that had then turned into something real and warm and....)

 _Don't_ think about it.

_`well you do make me smile a lot` _

_Shit._

He squeezed his eyes shut, took a steadying breath, and waited.

` **Marinette**`  
`_4:36_` `kiss me how?`

He narrowed his eyes at his phone.

` **me**`  
`_4:37_` `i'd kiss your nose`  
`_4:37_` `it's a very cute nose`  
`_4:37_` `you should be proud of it`

Count her freckles with his lips, trail kisses over her cheeks, her forehead, her eyelids, the tips of her ears, kisses that would be innocent in moderation but adoring in excess, keeping himself between her and the world.

He _really_ wanted to kiss her.

Excessively so, even.

` **Marinette**`  
`_4:37_` `just my nose?`

Adrien choked a silent, breathless laugh into his pillow.

` **me**`  
`_4:37_` `of course not`  
`_4:38_` `your cheeks are adorable`  
`_4:38_` `very kissable`  
`_4:38_` `and your forehead`  
`_4:38_` `your freckles`  
`_4:38_` `your temples`  
`_4:39_` `i mean, all of you, really`

Adrien stared at the last text, wishing he'd thought that through just a little bit more. He hunched, digging himself back into his blankets, fighting the nervous feeling of overexposure.

` **me**`  
`_4:39_` `where would you want to be kissed if i pushed you against a wall?`

* * *

_Where_ , he asked.

Marinette's much-abused lower lip got a few more gnaws as she debated the wisdom of telling Adrien _exactly_ where she'd fantasized him kissing her while pinning her against a wall. He'd given her the perfect opening, after all.

Not that she didn't appreciate him wanting to kiss her every facial feature (her _freckles?_ Was he _trying_ to kill her with giddiness?). She intended to save that text so she could read it over and over for the rest of her life, while grinning fit to split her face.

` **me**`  
`_4:39_` `all of me, huh?`

But Boozed-Up Marinette was on a mission.

` **me**`  
`_4:40_` `somewhere a little more daring than my face i think`  
`_4:40_` `like my jaw...`  
`_4:40_` `my neck.....`  
`_4:40_` `maybe a wrist?`

Well, maybe not a stellar mission. Marinette winced. Walking the fine line between sensual and not-too-desperate was tricky, and why had she made that a question?!

` **me**`  
`_4:40_` `maybe lower ;)`

**_WHY HAD SHE TYPED THAT AT ALL?!_ **

Cringing and blushing from head to toe, she hurried through her next line. She needed to change the subject, stat.

` **me**`  
`_4:41_` `what about you?`

* * *

Adrien's not-quite-idle fantasy of pressing damp, heated kisses to every part of her she mentioned came to an abrupt, grinding halt.

_`maybe lower ;)` _

A broken, unprintable noise ripped out of Adrien's throat.

She didn't mean...

She _couldn't_ mean...

He swallowed.

There was no _way_...

She could've meant she wanted him to kiss her feet for all he knew!

Really!

...He didn't know who he was trying to fool.

She didn't mean her feet, he knew that.

He wasn't _that_ oblivious.

She meant her jeans on the floor and her hands in his hair. She meant her and him in a shower, in an abandoned classroom, against his front door (or maybe hers?) with his mouth on her breast or his head between her legs, worshipping her with everything he had. She meant him on his knees, tasting her, lapping at her, kissing her clit and slipping a tongue into her sex, testing, playing, exploring until he figured out what made her _scream._

_Oh god._

Adrien lost a few minutes to the concept of Marinette pulling his hair and bucking against his face while she whimpered his name, sobbed it, bracketed it with pleas and curses before realizing that `_i'd do anything_` was not an acceptable answer to `_what about you?_`

He backspaced, missing the button three or four times before the message disappeared, then, shaking, replaced it with, `_what about me?_`

` **Marinette**`  
`_4:43_` `where would you want to be kissed if i pushed you against a wall?`

Adrien inhaled through his nose, forcing air back into his lungs and wrestling that fantasy back into its box before he pushed himself over the edge wondering how much force he'd have to use to rip her panties off with his teeth.

If Marinette pushed him against a wall?

The obvious answer, asking if she'd be willing to return the favor, felt alien. Too inconceivable to be arousing. He dropped that thought, cool, blank confusion clearing his head just a little bit.

The thought of kissing her felt almost too innocent after his last train of thought, but it fit. If Marinette pushed him against a wall, he'd want her to kiss him on the lips. Past his lips. Trailing her fingertips up his sides, over his chest, stroking his nape and smiling against his mouth.

This was, he noted with something not unlike despair, just barely better than his last fantasy, and the benefits were mostly limited to the fact that he wasn't in danger of getting off on the thought alone.

` **me**`  
`_4:43_` `anywhere you wanted to kiss me`

He breathed, and tried not to wonder too hard if that would include the places she'd like to be kissed.

( _Soft, wet, sweet kisses laid out all in a row from the hollow beneath his ear to his clavicle—_ )

(Stop.)

` **me**`  
`_4:43_` `but if`  
`_4:44_` `you wanted to kiss me on the lips`  
`_4:44_` `i'd be the happiest cat in the world`

* * *

_Happiest cat, huh...?_

Marinette pressed the edge of her phone case to her lips, picturing a soft, bright smile in place of cool plastic while little bits of her life shifted irrevocably. She'd thought he only smiled like that for Ladybug, but...

` **me**`  
`_4:44_` `i don't think that would be a problem`

She wasn't sure if Adrien's slip regarding his alter ego was on purpose, but it still fed her imagination, and the fantasy changed. She itched to let her bare hands drift over the back of his neck, to comb them through his hair. To feel if it was as soft and warm and wild as the rest of him.

She yearned to feel the armour-textured contours of his body against her skin, a low purr rolling against her chest and giving voice to his pleasure while she determined just _how_ sensitive those cat ears were.

And she plotted out the sinful things her mouth would do to his in contrast to her hands: her tongue stroking his, working him over with lips and gentle teeth until he melted against her. Only then would she move on to his ear, his throat, the sweep of his collarbone that had been so teasingly on display earlier that night. She licked her lips, recalling how the pale V of skin had flashed from the neck of his pajama shirt.

` **me**`  
`_4:44_` `what about... lower?`

` **♥ beau gosse ♥**`  
`_4:44_` `yes`

Marinette was no longer sure if her imaginary fingers were slipping buttons out of their holes or easing down a belled zipper, but it didn't really matter — or at least didn't matter as much as picturing the skin hiding beneath. She envisioned what the planes of Adrien's chest might feel like against her lips, her tongue: smooth and warm, hinting of salt, heaving and hitching with every panting breath or stifled gasp. The strangled noise he might make as her teeth grazed a pert nipple, how far down she would trace his flush — and then beyond, over perfectly curved ribs, a toned stomach, to (if he'd let her) the sharp jut of a hip bone.

She wanted to be able to leave a mark there, to brand _Marinette's_ smile on Adrien's skin in a way that he'd feel every time he moved, to insert her everyday self between his thoughts of Ladybug. To _enchant_ him, and to have him _want_ to be enchanted.

` **me**`  
`_4:45_` `and if I wanted to leave a souvenir?`

* * *

Adrien stared at the text, heart going too fast for his lungs to keep up.

` **me**`  
`_4:45_` `what kind?`

At this point, she could probably send him an Eiffel Tower model from a tourist stand and he'd thank her for it.

If she meant a hickey, a bite mark, lipstick smears on his clothing?

( _Smears of lipstick painting his skin from his chest to his stomach to his hips, pink or scarlet or somewhere in between, waxy and messy and thick with the memory of her lips—_ )

Adrien fought to keep from moaning aloud.

` **Marinette**`  
`_4:45_` `oh you know the usual kind`  
`_4:45_` `for kisses ;)`  
`_4:45_` `would you want me to, mr model?`

Adrien shut his eyes, like that would help him.

Posing for the cameras covered head to toe in her 'souvenirs' would be...

` **me**`  
`_4:46_` `yes`  
`_4:46_` `please`  
`_4:46_` `god please`

* * *

In the living room, all but one of the quilts had been kicked to the far end of the couch, leaving Marinette in just her borrowed clothes with a single blanket covering her feet. She felt hot, feverish even, but chills ran up and down her spine every time she reread Adrien's pleading texts.

He wanted her. Adrien really wanted _her_ , and she was glad this was happening over text because her mouth was so dry she didn't think she could speak. How was she supposed to deal with this? How was she supposed to give this amazing person everything he deserved?

Her thumbs moved mechanically, typing with almost zero input from her higher brain functions, which had all gone on strike.

` **me**`  
`_4:46_` `what else would you want?`  
`_4:46_` `if you could have anything`  
`_4:46_` `anything at all`

She could only think about how much she wanted to see Adrien completely _satisfied_ , blissful and relaxed and content in a way he never quite seemed to be during the day.

About how much she wanted to be the cause of that.

* * *

Anything...?

Adrien rolled onto his back to ease the pressure on his groin, mind flashing to all the things he wanted.

He could name a fantasy — hell, he could name twenty, fifty, a hundred fantasies — but...

The only thing they had in common was her.

 _No,_ he thought, loosening the next three buttons on his shirt, _that wasn't quite right._

They all had her in common, but in them, in all of them, she wanted _him._

He undid another three buttons, wondering where on her neck was the most sensitive, whether he needed to kiss or nip her wrist to make her moan the loudest, what the skin of her stomach tasted like and if she'd like him to kiss it, too.

He didn't know, couldn't know unless she let him test it, or unless....

Unless she told him.

Unless she murmured her fantasies into his ear, guided his hands, guided his body to the positions that would give her the most pleasure.

He undid the last two buttons of his shirt, and woke his phone back up.

` **me**`  
`_4:47_` `I want to know what you want`  
`_4:47_` `so I can do it all for you`

* * *

Marinette's throat released something between a pleased low purr and a quiet scream. Salacious images crowded her mind in a heartbeat: Adrien's hands tight on her hips as he ground up against her, Adrien sagging bonelessly against a chimney in the dead of night as he chanted her name, Adrien supporting her from behind as his fingers stroked and curled inside her, Adrien lapping between her legs like his namesake and looking perfectly happy to be doing so...

The hot-cold feeling spread throughout her body, settling in her bones. Marinette squeezed her thighs together in an attempt to relieve some of the ache, pretty sure that it was impolite to rub one out in someone else's home while wearing their clothes — even if that person _was_ sending her texts suggestive enough to make her toes curl. She kept her fingers firmly on her phone, eager to return the favour tenfold without a thought for the consequences.

` **me**`  
`_4:47_` `all of it?`  
`_4:47_` `thats quite a promise kitty`

A promise he sounded 100% serious about, and she didn't doubt for a second that he'd do his best to keep it. That he was willing to give her that much power over him was heady, intoxicating, and her head swam with it.

` **me**`  
`_4:47_` `what if I want...`

She could picture his hands on her body, skin on skin, the two of them sharing heat and breath and lips and heartbeats...

` **me**`  
`_4:48_` `to pin you down`

...green eyes shining up at her, dark with lust and soft with affection...

` **me**`  
`_4:48_` `kiss you until we cant breathe`

How she'd draw on his mouth until he groaned, let him know that he didn't have to hide, didn't have to hold back—

` **me**`  
`_4:48_` `find out how loud you moan`  
`_4:48_` `see where all your sensitive spots are`

—follow his movements like only she could as his partner and his friend, even if he didn't know it; how she'd show him without words just how important he was, how long she'd wanted this, wanted _him_ —

` **me**`  
`_4:48_` `get under your skin`  
`_4:48_` `have you get into mine`

—let herself drown in him, have him wrapped around her, under her, over her, _in_ her—

` **me**`  
`_4:48_` `or maybe just get into me`

* * *

`**Marinette**`  
`_4:48_` `or maybe just get into me`

Adrien bit down on the knuckle he'd shoved in his mouth at `_find out how loud you moan_` and tasted copper.

 _How loud he moaned_ was probably loud enough to carry right into the living room, but the fact that she _wanted him inside her_ was too much for Adrien to give this more than a passing thought.

The thought of Marinette whispering his name as she sank down on him, _hot_ and _tight_ and _slick_ , wanting him, _needing_ him even half as much as he wanted her was enough to have him swallowing down a second moan, too hot and tight inside his _own_ skin, never mind _hers._

Adrien bit the corner of his phone, teeth clacking over the hard plastic, before he took it out, trying to squirm away from the unbearable itch that had taken over his entire body.

She wanted him _inside her_. She wanted his—

_Oh, oh god._

Did she want him under her? he wondered feverishly. Did she want him on his back, tied to the headboard and at her mercy, mouthing her name as she rode him until he was incoherent, rode him until she found her own pleasure, smug and flushed and _alive_ with their combined juices painted over her thighs?

Did she want him on top of her? Did she want him to kiss her awake in the early morning light, to pleasure her with his mouth and hands until she rolled over and pulled him closer, closer, _closer_ until the tip of him was pushing into her heat, until he was rocking slowly inside her, until she was shuddering in his arms, begging _faster, oh, faster—_

Did she want to fuck him? Shove him backwards into a closet with her teeth sinking into his lip and her dress slipping off her shoulders after a long evening of nothing but teasing, soaked panties dangling off one ankle as she hooked a thigh over his hip and climbed him like a tree, shoving his pants down around his own ankles and wrapping her legs around his waist and welcoming him inside, hot walls clenching around him until he broke?

Or did she want to make love to him? Collapse in his bed with him after an uneventful patrol, laughing kisses melting them both down until neither of them wanted to move, clothes shed article by article until they were bare, kisses turning into sex for the pleasure and intimacy of it (noses brushing and skin flushing, learning firsthand about every last ripple of movement that went into her laughter) more than any driving need?

Did it even matter, when she wanted _him?_

He didn't know — couldn't know; he'd never done any of it, not with anyone else, not when he'd loved her so much, for so long — but...

She was better, obviously had more experience with things like this, but she'd be willing to teach him, he thought. She was impatient, but she'd be willing to show him, guide him into giving her whatever she wanted, so long as he listened, he thought. She'd be willing to murmur encouragements and corrections as she held his fingers at her sex, panting, _higher_ or _there_ or _harder_ or _c-curl_ —

She was still waiting for a reply.

It was a fight to get his phone in front of his face, a fight to get his eyes to focus on the text, a fight not to make _another_ noise as he reread her last text, but, somehow, his fingers found the keys.

* * *

`**♥ beau gosse ♥**`  
`_4:50_` `i think i'm going to come if i move wrong`

Well, Marinette thought faintly. That was certainly in keeping with the moan she thought she'd heard from Adrien's bedroom. The low, strangled one that had barely sounded like him but had still nearly caused her to jackknife off the couch.

She pressed a pillow to her face, muffling her own not-so-quiet whine in the plush stuffing.

Holy shit. _Holy shit._ She'd brought Adrien Agreste — Chat Noir, Paris' resident public flirt and literal supermodel, to the edge _by texting_.

How many girls did he have swooning over him on a daily basis? How many other literal supermodels did he _work_ with on a daily basis, in close quarters and various states of undress? He must have seen _and_ heard it all before. He must have lost count of all the love letters and pickup lines. And yet somehow she, without any real idea of what she was doing, with only a phone and misplaced bravado and way too much beer, had done _this_.

She felt like a sexting queen. She felt like a magician. She felt like a god damned superhero.

Of a different kind than usual, anyway.

It made her wonder whether the niggling voice she'd labelled as Bad Decisions all night had been right all along. Made her wonder whether she should keep going, test her luck, see just _how_ much of an effect she could have on Adrien.

Marinette sucked in a deep, shaking breath, staring at her phone's keyboard before slowly typing out her next move.

_How far could she push this?_

`**me**`  
`_4:50_` `maybe you should, hot stuff`

She held her breath, listening hard for any whisper of sound, and thought she caught a choked noise from the other room. Her hands fairly trembled around her phone, wondering if that had simply been his reaction to her text or if he had maybe... maybe...

* * *

Adrien inhaled, spine melting into the bed and shame settling into his bones as he came down from that spectacular high.

She was just one room away.

She was just _one room away_ , and all it had taken was the thought of her over him — smiling, eyes flashing azure in the moonlight, purring those five words in his ear — to make him come harder than he ever had in his life.

Plucking at his pajama bottoms, he wrinkled his nose. He... probably needed to change his clothes.

He was about to do that when he realized that that would mean audibly getting up and puttering around his room for a change of clothing when she was just _one room away_ , and decided against it.

He... he could deal with being sticky and uncomfortable for a while, at least until she fell asleep.

He wondered if _she_ was sticky and uncomfortable. If she was getting off on this even a little bit, if she enjoyed having him like this, putty in her hands—

Her lovely, lovely hands, resting innocently, idly between her thighs, barely touching, then just stroking, then pressing down on and sliding beneath the cloth covering—

She was still in his clothes.

Oh god, she'd been sending him — was still sending him messages like that, and somehow, somehow it had slipped his mind that she was _wearing his clothes_.

She was in his living room, wearing his clothes, wrapped in his bedding, texting him that she wanted him— that she wanted him _inside her_ , that she wanted him to—

` **me**`  
`_4:52_` `mmercy`  
`_4:52_` `i cant`  
`_4:52_` `im not`

_If you keep this up, I'm going to actually die._

He barely had the strength or the bravery to lift his phone when the reply came, but at the same time he didn't think he could have missed a text if he'd wanted to.

` **Marinette**`  
`_4:52_` `youre not what?`

He made a stilted little noise in the back of his throat, an almost-laugh that was just want and incredulity and _want_.

` **me**`  
`_4:52_` `im not`  
`_4:52_` `i don;t`

There wasn't much he could do to keep his hands from shaking (she was _in his clothes_ ), but he took a second to gather his scattered thoughts and wrangle them into something vaguely communicable.

` **me**`  
`_4:53_` `you;re really good at this and ve`  
`_4:53_` `i know youre`  
`_4:53_` `please ive never done this before`

` **Marinette**`  
`_4:53_` `i havent either but sure`  
`_4:53_` `ii mean yes sure`  
`_4:53_` `i mean sorry`  
`_4:53_` `sorry sorry`

Adrien raised the phone, blinking at the innocuous line of texts and waiting for them to resolve into something legible.

` _I haven't either_ `? 

What?

What did she mean she hadn't?

Also, why an apology? Why _three_ apologies? (Unless that was actually _five_ apologies — he was crossing his eyes trying to make sense of this.)

` **me**`  
`_4:54_` `wait what`  
`_4:54_` `?`  
`_4:54_` `why sorry?`

(He was leaving the first part for later, when he could make heads or tails of it.)

Marinette's reply came in a series of steady, measured texts that felt like she was hesitating before each one.

` **Marinette**`  
`_4:54_` `its uh`  
`_4:54_` `ive never done this before either so`  
`_4:54_` `sorry if i um`  
`_4:54_` `pushed too hard`

Adrien stared at the texts, still uncomprehending.

` **me**`  
`_4:55_` `no`  
`_4:55_` `no i meann`  
`_4:55_` `youre`  
`_4:55_` `really really good at this`

Really, _really_...

God, he was going to have to talk to her tomorrow morning.

She was still going to be wearing his clothes.

He was going to remember this conversation while seeing her tomorrow _in his clothes_.

He swallowed hard, hesitated, disbelief or hope or _something_ stilling his fingers, and then typed, `_never?_`

Another pause. Then:

` **Marinette**`  
`_4:55_` `never`

He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, something melting, unfurling, blossoming in the pit of his stomach.

She'd... never done this before. Just here, just now, just with _him._

It felt like she'd just handed him something incredibly precious, an honor or a little bit of her trust right here.

He tapped the phone against his lips, warm, smooth plastic screen dimming at the inactivity, and then started to type again.

` **me**`  
`_4:56_` `oh`

He hesitated again, debating between the niggling curiosity in the back of his mind and wondering if he really even wanted to know.

Curiosity won out.

` **me**`  
`_4:56_` `can i ask why?`  
`_4:57_` `why you haven't or why me or`  
`_4:57_` `i mean`  
`_4:57_` `you must've had opportunities`

Someone like Marinette? Of course she must've had boyfriends before. (Or girlfriends? Boyfriends and girlfriends? He'd missed huge chunks of her life, it wouldn't surprise him if he'd missed a memo somewhere.)

She was cute and kind and charismatic. She _knew_ she was cute, at the very least. What was there to stop her?

* * *

`**♥ beau gosse ♥**`  
`_4:57_` `you must've had opportunities`

Marinette sagged tiredly on the couch, brows creased as she frowned at the text. The initial stab of panic she'd felt when Adrien had begged mercy had faded, and without further sexually-ridden texts to keep her squirming in her seat, exhaustion had begun to win out.

Which wasn't really helping her decipher the meaning behind Adrien's statements.

He wanted to know why she'd picked him to text to? About? Why she'd fumbled her way through untested innuendo-laden waters with him?

_Because you gave me your umbrella and a glimpse of your feelings on a rainy day._

_Because you're kind and dorky and smart and devoted and just the most amazing person I've ever met._

_Because you're the best partner I could ask for._

_Because you help me be a better person._

Marinette mulled over her response as she pulled the blankets back up around herself, thoughts churning slowly. Surely he knew all his good qualities, while she was just an awkward klutz. Why did Adrien think it was so weird that she'd choose him? _Had_ she had opportunities?

She couldn't think of any, at least not any that _counted_. Copycat certainly didn't. Sure, she'd been asked out once or twice over the years — but only casually, she was sure, and she'd never really found herself interested. She didn't think those qualified as _opportunities_ if she hadn't had any intention of following through.

` **me**`  
`_4:57_` `if i have i havent really noticed?`

Settling back against her pillows, Marinette let her fingers wander the screen as her eyelids grew heavier, barely aware of what she was writing any more. She was warm and comfortable and feeling pretty good, all things considered. Sure, she probably wouldn't be able to face Adrien in the morning, and considering how worked up she'd gotten she was going to have to wash his pants five times before she'd dare to give them back to him, but at the moment things were okay. Nice.

` **me**`  
`_4:57_` `i just wasnt you know interested`  
`_4:57_` `and ive been crazy in love with you since middle school so`

Marinette smiled as her eyes lazily scanned over her last message, then froze, terror slicing through the sleepy contentment.

_Why had she done that?!_

She _knew_ there was no way Adrien would accept Marinette's feelings, not when Chat was still head over heels for Ladybug. Whatever they'd shared tonight was a lone semi-drunken incident. If anything, she'd just set herself up for rejection! And now everything was going to be stilted and awkward _and not even remotely sexy ever again_.

God, had she really admitted she'd liked him since _middle school?!_

Dropping her phone as if it had bitten her, Marinette yanked the blankets over her head and curled up with her arms around her knees, vowing not to touch it for the rest of the night. Maybe if she did Adrien would fall asleep, and then she could sneak into his room and find his phone and delete all the texts and he'd wake up and think everything had been a dream and they'd be fine.

Right. Great. Perfect plan. He'd never know she was there. She'd just creep quietly into his room. His room right next door. The room where he might have....

...She was never going to be fine ever again.

* * *

Adrien was still processing `_i just wasnt you know interested_` when the next text came in.

( _So that was the memo he'd missed,_ he thought with a mingled sense of relief and disappointment — she probably hadn't meant any of her flirting towards him, but at the same time, she hadn't meant it towards anyone else, either, and he hadn't missed as much of her life as he'd feared.)

Then his eyes fell on her last text, and he froze.

` _'And I've been crazy in love'_` was an adventure all on its own. Marinette? In love? With _who?_ And _how had he missed it?_ Was he really that blind?

His eyes skipped over `_'with you'_` and hit `_'since middle school'_`, and then abandoned `_'so'_` entirely.

Marinette had been 'crazy in love' with someone 'since middle school'? What? _With who?_ Even putting aside that they were partners, he'd spent his entire school career with her in some form, be it in adjacent classrooms or shared lunch periods. He should've _known_ , shouldn't he?

(At this point, his distress was born of shock more than anything else — denial as he frantically scoured his memory banks for whoever she could be talking about. He _couldn't_ be that blind, could he?)

He reread the text in its entirety, finally registering the `_'with you'_`.

His first thought was _oh, that's a misspelling._

His second thought was _wait, not a misspelling?_

His third was, _all these words make sense separately..._

He lowered his phone and made faces at the ceiling as he mouthed her words aloud, trying to make heads or tails of them.

All it told him was that Marinette was claiming to be crazy in love with him since middle school.

He lifted his phone up again and squinted through the glare, rereading the text again. And then again. And again and again and again and—

` **me**`  
`_4:59_` `wait what`  
`_4:59_` `what`  
`_4:59_` `me`  
`_4:59_` `?`  
`_4:59_` `or was that`  
`_4:59_` `who?`

Marinette didn't respond.

The only text he had was her last three, where she claimed not to notice having had the opportunity to send dirty texts to anyone, that she'd never been interested, and that she'd been crazy in love with him since middle school.

One of these things was _not like the others._

` **me**`  
`_5:01_` `marinette?`

His phone remained silent.

It occurred to him all at once that maybe, _just_ maybe, the one she'd been crazy in love with since middle school was _him._

Him, as in Adrien Agreste. Him, as in the one person it had taken her ages to form a full, coherent sentence around. Him, as in the only person he'd ever seen her blush for.

He might've had her eye since _middle school_ and never even realized it.

He didn't notice he was rolling out of bed until he hit the ground, at which point he decided it was an excellent idea and staggered towards the door.

Thankfully, he noticed the wet patch before he actually left the room. Spitting a soft curse, he shucked his bottoms and wiped himself off before grabbing his discarded jeans from earlier that day and hopping into them as fast as he could.

No longer tellingly dirty (but tellingly reattired), Adrien burst into his living room, open nightshirt flapping at his sides.

"Marinette?"

In a case of mild déjà vu, there was a big lump of blankets on the couch, with a pink phone tossed haphazardly on the cushions at the far end.

The blankets flinched at his question, curling into a tighter ball before emitting a not-very-convincing snore.

His first thought was, inappropriately, _that's cute as fuck._

Mouth twitching into a smile he couldn't control, Adrien edged closer to the semi-inert, snoring lump.

"Marinette?" he tried again, much gentler this time.

He got another drawn-out snore for his efforts.

Amusement bubbled in the back of his throat, unvoiced, as he dropped into a crouch beside the couch, but it dimmed and flattened when he remembered why he was here, smothered under a thick layer of tenuous, breathless hope.

"Did..." He hesitated, nerves fizzing, then steeled his courage and took a plunge. "Did you... mean that?"

The next "snore" petered out before it really started when he spoke. Silence reigned for several long seconds, then was broken by a quiet, squeaky, "M-maybe?"

One little breath for courage, and Adrien reached out, his heart balancing on a knife's edge.

Slowly, carefully so as not to startle her, he rested a hand where he thought her shoulder might be, then grabbed the blanket between it and where she'd tucked under her head and gave it a silent, questioning tug. "Can I...?"

( _It sounded like a yes,_ pounded his hopeful heart over and over and over and over and—

She might've meant _yes._ )

Marinette hesitated for another long second, her breath held aching in her lungs. She could feel Adrien's hand on her shoulder even through the layers of blankets, warm and steadying, and it sent little tremors through her entire body.

At least it was Adrien, she reasoned. He was sure to let her down gently. Plus she still had her alter-ego — maybe she could try approaching him as Ladybug and start over that way. Granted, that was a little underhanded for several reasons...

Well, there wasn't anything to be done for it now. Squeezing her eyes shut, Marinette let Adrien tug at her fabric shell, pulling at the blankets herself until they slid back and cool air hit her face.

Cheeks bright pink, hair a tousled mess, and lips bruised from nervous nibbling, Marinette cracked open her eyes and offered a sheepish, helpless smile.

It was really only Adrien's years of practice with denial that kept him from kissing her then and there. He didn't know, he still didn't know how welcome it would be, because she'd said those things, yes, but...

_But..._

He swallowed the lump in his throat and glanced away from her eyes — _flashing azure in the moonlight_ — his gaze falling on the shirt stretched tight around her shoulders, corners of worn and faded stripes tucked neatly under her arms, and what came out of his mouth next wasn't an echo of his earlier question ( _Did you mean it?_ ), as he'd intended it to be, but instead:

"Can I kiss you?"

Marinette's bruised lips parted in surprise, blue eyes widening in the dimness of the room. She'd never seen Adrien like this, with flushed face and bedhead hair and dark, intent eyes cast in shadow. Had never seen so much of both Chat and Adrien in him at the same time, both equally at the forefront and looking at her like she was the only person in the world who mattered.

"Yeah," she croaked, her dry voice coming out as a barely audible whisper.

Then, because she evidently hated herself, she added, "N-neither of us is against a wall, though."

Adrien hiccuped a laugh, the noise snagged into something breathless by the lump in his throat, and hesitated before reaching out to smooth her messy locks, fingers tingling almost as much as they were trembling.

Yes, yes, yes, _she said yes_ , tumbled through his mind, his heart, wrecking everything in its path, leaving his mouth dry and his legs numb, highlighting how silky soft her hair felt in his fingertips and the warmth of her breath on his skin. _She said **yes**._

 _This is a dream,_ he thought as he leaned in. It had to be a dream, or a mistake, or—or...

Her hair was catching on his fencing callouses.

Dreams didn't have details like that.

(Adrien would know.)

He thumbed her cheekbone, heart hammering in his throat, and she didn't tell him no. She didn't tell him to stop, or that it was a mistake.

Adrien closed the last three inches, pausing just as the edges of his lips brushed the edges of hers.

She still didn't say no.

It gave him exactly one little jolt of reckless courage, and Adrien whispered, "Later," right before he sealed the distance.

The jolt blossomed into burning fireworks as Marinette _whimpered_ and leaned into him, making it clear that she was all for what was happening. She pressed her lips firmly against his, parting her mouth without hesitation to learn his taste.

This had to be some kind of miracle. She must have used up a wish somewhere to find herself here, kissing Adrien in his living room in the early hours of the morning, wearing his (very comfortable) clothes. Marinette certainly couldn't think of anything _she'd_ done to deserve it.

But as thrilled as she felt, a quiet part of her brain kept insisting that Adrien probably didn't _really_ mean it, that Marinette was just practice for Ladybug. That a kiss was just a kiss, not a confession.

Marinette attempted to silence the insidious voice by slipping her hands free of the blankets, hooking them around the back of Adrien's neck and hauling him closer into the kiss, eliminating the space between them. She didn't want to leave any room for doubt or questions or insecurity. Those could come in the morning with the sunrise.

Right now she wanted it to be only them. No superheroing, no secrets or responsibilities.

Just Adrien and Marinette.

It wasn't _quite_ just-Adrien that breathed her in, skin and musk and sweetness filling his nose and hitting the back of his throat, or just-Adrien that exhaled on a groan, thighs _tingling_ with the urge to crawl up over her, to get closer closer _closer_ — but, all told, it might have been something close. Someone _wrecked_ and _wanting_ and stripped bare, right down to the bone; someone reeling and intoxicated and all too happy to go wherever she wanted him.

Because that was it.

She wanted _him_.

It was _him_ she was opening up to and _him_ she was pulling closer — his clothes she was wearing, thin cotton covering lithe muscle and supple flesh, and the sheer _reality_ of it had him moaning as he lurched into her, pressing her deeper into the pillows with a broken whine.

Adrien was never, ever, _ever_ recovering from this.

Marinette wasn't faring much better, letting out an indecipherable, strangled noise of her own between rough gulps of air. Her thighs closed around Adrien's hips to keep him even closer; her back arched off the couch cushions until she could feel every ridge and plane of his torso against hers.

And _feel_ him she did, especially when the almost unbearably soft sensation of cotton and heat reminded her that she wasn't wearing a bra. Marinette gasped and squirmed without thinking. She wasn't sure if it was an attempt to back away or get more of the feeling, but it backfired either way as the motion sent too-hot sparks of fire rushing up her spine.

With a whine of her own she broke the kiss, panting for breath while her fingers curled in his hair and the back of his nightshirt. She didn't dare open her eyes just yet (she didn't even remember closing them), not when there was a very real risk that whatever face Adrien was making would leave her a babbling, incoherent mess on the floor.

Instead she forced herself to concentrate on breathing, turning her attention to the light brush of their noses and the heat of their mingled breath against their cheeks.

Adrien, resting on his elbows above her, didn't have any such reservations. All forms of higher thought had been silenced by that kiss, and he suffered for it.

He couldn't see much of her; there was only just enough light to illuminate the way her dusty black eyelashes laid on her cheeks, the pert tip of her nose, the dark flush of her cheeks, and he slammed his eyes shut, moving his head to the side to press his face into the pillow beside her, half-tempted to smother himself.

It might be easier if she didn't feel so _good_ under him, but the way she'd squirmed, breathed, _whimpered_ was still sitting right below the surface, leaving an inescapable sort of buzz under his skin to mix with the afterglow lingering there.

( _Refractory period,_ murmured his half-sated body.

 _What's that?_ his hormones yelled back, from a great distance.)

Then she breathed, soft breasts and stiffened nipples brushing his bare chest through one heartattack-thin layer of fabric and some fabric paint worn past roughness, and Adrien was now clear-headed enough to realize that the only thing keeping her bare skin from rubbing against him was _his shirt_.

He sagged, every joint gone weak.

( _Refractory period,_ said his body, quieter.

 _WHAT'S THAT?_ said his hormones, much closer than they were previously.)

This, of course, pressed their fronts together in new and exciting ways, and the parts of his brain that had threatened retirement when her thighs closed around his hips pretty much just up and left, giving the ghost of his coherence up for lost.

"Holy _shit_ ," he wheezed, a stunned half-laugh taking possession of half the syllables, hot, hot, hot face buried in the pillow that was his but smelled like her.

Marinette gurgled a sound of agreement against his throat, too short on air for a laugh of her own. The way he kept _pressing into her_ was seriously interfering with her attempts to get her brain working again. All she could do was lie as still as possible while Adrien tortured her with the weight of his body and the husky timbre of his voice and the vibration of his laugh against her lips.

Her fingers clutched more tightly at the fabric of his shirt, desperate for a distraction, and found one when the cloth gave way by a surprising amount. Marinette's mouth curved in a slight frown as she tugged at the garment, then parted in surprise as she realized it was _coming off_ — or at least wasn't fastened all the way.

She made a firm decision right then and there to keep her eyes closed until Adrien was safely back in bed.

...Or maybe keep them open. She wasn't quite sure yet.

 _You could take that off,_ Adrien _didn't_ suggest, because he _wasn't_ going to attempt to jump the girl who'd _come to him for shelter_ after getting _dead drunk_ , he thought, reminding himself of all this with a vicious mental kick.

Not even if she could make him swoon with a smirk and a well-placed remark.

 _Especially_ not if she could make him swoon with a smirk and a well-placed remark.

(Not even if every signal he was getting said she might not mind if he did.)

( _God._ The way she sounded was... was... was...

Oh, _fuck_ him.)

Or at least, jump her any more than he already had.

He... should probably make a formal apology the next time he could look at her and form coherent sentences.

Taking a steadying breath or three (none of which helped because all he could smell was his detergent and her skin and alcohol), he pulled his face out of the pillow and hovered over her again. He shifted his weight so he could cup her cheek, velvety soft skin and glowing warm flush a small seduction all on its own.

"You meant that, didn't you."

It wasn't a question that time, but gently muted in wonder and adoration instead.

Marinette's flush heated and deepened under his touch, but she opened her eyes — only to squeeze them shut again after getting a glimpse of his expression. She'd been right: the look on his face was too much to take. Even the brief peek she'd seen had been so raw and full of amazement that her heart swelled in her chest, aching sweetly against her ribs.

It was ridiculous how much she loved this boy — this _man_ , her partner. He meant more to her and was more special than she was _ever_ going to be able to put into words.

There probably wasn't much point in hiding it now.

Marinette untangled a hand from Adrien's shirt, lifting it to cover his own where it rested on her cheek. The breath she drew in shivered in the air, trembling like a tentative hope.

"Y-yeah."

There was nothing else for Adrien to do then _but_ kiss her; he was too close to resist.

He hiccuped a laugh as he was magnetized back in, impotent and helpless and every bit of him _thrilled_ , right down to his toes. Her lips were plush and sweet and utterly destructive, still damp and still tasting half like him, and it was nothing short of a miracle that he managed to pull back before they both got sucked into another heady embrace. He rested his forehead against hers and tried (failed) to remember how to breathe.

"'Love you," he rasped, shutting his eyes and seeing that flicker of azure all over again, destroyed, destroyed, destroyed. "Love you so _much._ "

(How long, oh god, _how long_ had he wanted to hear her say that? And now she had. And now she was here, blushing and whispering that she'd been in love with him for just as long, and everything, _everything_ about this night felt like the best dream he'd ever had.)

Overheated, breath still unsteady, tingling from head to toe and half swooning, Marinette stilled underneath him.

The words he'd rasped bounced around in her head, echoing off the inside of her skull, but she couldn't get her addled brain to make sense of them. Her eyes blinked open in surprise. She frowned in puzzlement. She wrinkled her nose.

"Wait. What?"

She _couldn't_ have heard right. Her hand left his and felt her forehead to make _sure_ she wasn't wearing a mask.

It was her tone of voice that brought him up short, stymieing his near-irrepressible urge to paint his adoration into her skin however he could. It wasn't any good if she wasn't on board, after all.

It took him a second to parse her sounds into words, but when he did, he was frowning right back, honestly confused by her honest confusion.

"What do you mean, 'what?'" _I love you_ was pretty unambiguous, wasn't it?

"I mean—" Oh, now she'd done it. Mari fixed her eyes on the back of the couch so she wouldn't have to look Adrien in the eye, shoulders hiking up around her ears. Why couldn't she have kept her big mouth shut?

"What about La— I mean, the, uh— I-I thought you... had a crush... on someone... else...??"

Adrien's honest confusion ratcheted up a few notches.

"Who...?"

He stared at her, mouth forming silent questions as he tried to figure out what she meant by that. Someone else? Who could possibly top _her?_ Who could she possibly be talking abou—

Wait.

Adrien ran through what she'd said one more time.

_"What about La—"_

Oh.

She didn't know.

_Oh shit._

He'd forgotten.

_She didn't know._

She didn't know he knew, and she didn't know that he was her partner and oh shit _oh shit_.

(Which also sort of meant he'd kissed her without her knowing and that... wasn't good.)

He opened his mouth and breathed in, intending to explain and apologize, and then realized he didn't have a _single clue_ where to start.

How could one politely and gently say, _I'm sorry, I'm actually your partner whom you've been turning down for years, who accidentally figured out who you were months ago, and I forgot you didn't know that I knew somewhere between the dirty texts and confessions of love and holy shit what do you mean you've been in love with me since middle school?_

One couldn't, that was how.

But not saying anything at all wasn't working out in his favour either, as Marinette chanced a glance at his face only to look even more uncertain.

Had she gotten it wrong? Sure, at first she'd been kind of wilfully blind to just how deep Chat's feelings for Ladybug had run, but she'd thought she'd gotten the gist of it now. Or had he legitimately forgotten about Ladybug during their little tryst? Maybe the flirts _were_ just for fun and his feelings didn't run that deep after all? Or maybe she'd been _entirely_ off and he did have a crush but it wasn't on _either_ of her identities?

Oh god, what if he had a crush on _Chloé?_

 _Calm down,_ the sounded-like-Tikki part of her brain ordered, cutting through the mounting tide of panic. _He **did** say he loves you. That's not something Adrien — or Chat — would just say without meaning. You know him better than that._

Fighting for calm, Marinette swallowed hard and let both her hands rest on Adrien's shoulders.

_Right, I do know him better than that._

She risked another quick glance up at his eyes.

_And... I trust him._

"A-Adrien...?"

Adrien hesitated only a second longer, because the longer he put it off, the worse it would be.

He took one more second to decide on a starting point, took a deep breath, and said, "Stoneheart."

It wasn't the best of starting points, but it gave him something to work off of as he pushed himself up, his body already mourning the lack of her heat. "I fell in love with you during the Stoneheart attack. You..."

He swallowed around the knot in his chest, remembering the girl who was so brave and so clever, but not always — remembering the frail jut of her shoulders in his palms and her powerful, ringing voice as she declared the city under _their_ protection.

"You were... just as lost as I was," was somehow what he ended up saying. "But so much braver and smarter and..." He laughed an almost-laugh, scared sick. "And you were amazing."

"Stoneheart...?" Marinette repeated in a quiet echo, hands drawing in to clutch at her chest in an attempt to hold onto the warmth he'd taken away. Her eyes searched his face in the darkness, trying to remember what excuse she'd had for not being around during that battle.

But she hadn't given Adrien an excuse that time, had she? He'd only just started school, and she hadn't really 'met' him yet. What had she done as Marinette that would have caught his eye? Had he seen her talking to Ivan in the locker room?

Or maybe...

"I really didn't do much," she mumbled, feeling like that much was true, at least.

Adrien shook with the second not-laugh. The statement was so patently untrue it was more than a little ridiculous.

"You did _everything,_ " he murmured, squeezing her knee. "You stood up when no one else _could_."

He pushed air into his lungs and shut his eyes, determined to confess it all — a process made much, much harder with the knowledge that any of it ( _all_ of it) could easily lose him her friendship for good.

"I know... I know you didn't want me to find out," he added, eyes catching on the little gesture and turning his stomach inside out. "And I'm—" He breathed, swallowed again, and fought to look her in the eye. "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to find out, and I-I thought..."

Being forced to say it aloud was forcing him to realize just how stupid his reasoning was.

"I thought that if I pretended I didn't, it wouldn't matter. I could still..." Another stilted inhale, and he forced himself to finish the sentence. "Still be your friend. Marinette's friend. And that Ladybug..."

Ladybug would still trust him, because she hadn't wanted him to know and he'd ended up knowing anyway, and he'd never be sure why she was so insistent, but it was important to her, and he'd, however unwillingly, _violated_ that.

Violated her trust.

Well, she could see that now. He forced himself to put the point he was dancing around into simple sentences, because speaking in circles wasn't going to earn him any favors.

"I'm Chat Noir, and I found out you were Ladybug eight months ago, when I caught you transforming behind the gym."

Marinette's eyes blew wide, mouth gaping while she processed his confession.

Adrien knew. He'd known for _eight months_. He'd known while they'd fought together and hung out together and when she'd texted him and when he'd kissed her and—

—and he'd confessed to being Chat Noir, when she—

Her face crumpled. She pressed a hand to her mouth, trying to still the trembling of her lips as her eyes scrunched up at the corners. It didn't help.

A nervous giggle escaped.

The sound of it became the trigger for another. Then another. Then a stifled guffaw. And then Marinette was lost to gales of choked, muffled laughter, relieved and a little hysterical, because _what were the odds_ and wasn't this _just like them_ and they had been in this giant circle _the entire time_...

Welp. _Laughter_ wasn't the response he'd expected, but it wasn't a fist to the nose and tears, so he'd take it.

He squeezed her knee again, rubbing little circles on the inside of it with his thumb in lieu of the back rubs he didn't dare give her right now, and the knot in his chest loosened tentatively.

"Sorry," he offered sheepishly, just barely audible over her laughter.

Laughter might not have been what he expected, but the more he thought about it — the drunkeness and the sexting and the kissing and the confessions and everything else that had happened that night — the more it made sense.

They were kind of ridiculous, weren't they.

His eyes fell on the faded stripes of his shirt scrunched up between her breasts, only to be removed in a hurry, and he stared at the far wall instead while he waited out her hilarity.

Marinette didn't wait even that long. Snickers were still shaking her chest and tears were still standing in her eyes when she reached up and pulled him back down with both arms around his neck, smiling brightly.

"Hi, _chaton_ ," she greeted between bubbles of mirth, pressing their foreheads together. The ghost of his touch on the inside of her knee was still spreading goosebumps over her skin. "I'm Ladybug, and I found out you were Chat Noir last year when I saw you sneak into your house to detransform."

Her smile widened even further. "I wasn't in love with you at first, but I noticed how excited and friendly you were, and how you were always right there when I needed you— even if you were a bit of a showoff. I couldn't have beat Stoneheart without you.

"And the umbrella," she continued, eyes softening. "I... first fell in love with you when you offered me your umbrella. You opened up to me, even though I'd only been rude to you... you explained yourself, and that you'd been trying to _protect_ me from one of Chloé's tricks."

Marinette half-shrugged, her smile turning sheepish. "Nobody had ever done that for me before you and Alya, you know?"

Adrien let out a shuddering laugh of his own, chest caving in relief.

 _She knew it was him._ She knew it was him, so he hadn't been pulling the wool over her eyes, tricking her into doing things with someone she didn't want to do them with. _Thank god._

"Chloé is..." He swallowed and looked away. "Herself. I'm... I'm glad I'm not the only one."

And... it was odd to think about, but he could barely remember that day. It had been rainy, she had been cute and sweet and a little bit unlucky, and Nathalie had sighed in disappointment when it came to her attention that he'd lost his umbrella.

That was it. He couldn't remember what he'd said, or if she'd asked for the umbrella before he'd given it to her, or what, exactly, she'd been angry with him for — just impressions of events and the faint image of big blue eyes peeking out at him from under a veil of black with a shy, sweet, sheepish smile.

And that... that had done it. A faint memory of something that had meant a new friend to him at the time had been the one thing that had gotten her to look at him, _really_ look at him, and he couldn't even remember what he'd _said._

(It probably wasn't one-sided; there were a hundred times, a hundred little ways he'd fallen for her over and over that she probably hadn't even realized he'd noticed. It still _bit_ that this one moment was absent, though.)

And she'd said...

She'd said...

She'd fallen in love with him.

She loved him.

She was _in love_ with him.

Everywhere she touched was tingling, her breath warm on his face, and he didn't mean his next words to be, "Can I kiss you again?" but they were.

(She knew, she knew, _she knew_ , and she'd still said... said...

_...Kiss you until we can't breathe..._

_...Get under your skin — have you get into mine..._

_...Or maybe just get into me._ )

Marinette didn't answer this time; just grinned as she gazed into his eyes, relieved and delighted, and in the softest of voices said, "Thank you for telling me."

Then she tilted her head, capturing his mouth in a kiss that, despite a sweet start, was anything _but_ soft.

It was hard, so hard to stay soft when she'd made it abundantly clear that she knew _exactly_ whom she was dragging closer, when he remembered that it was his sweet, adorably awkward friend and his _partner_ he was kissing, that she wanted him to kiss _her_.

Nigh impossible, really, to keep his distance when she was giving him every signal that she didn't _want_ him to keep his distance, arching and opening to him, so _willing_ it was killing him.

A groan sat in his chest, slipping out of the gaps in the kiss, taking little fragments of words with it, little _ohs_ and _my ladys_ and _Marinettes_ and _love yous_ , spilling out of him at every opportunity, stir-crazy at being bottled up for so long and longing for freedom.

Every breathy word from his lips shimmied down Marinette's spine in turn, each one chased by a shiver. Here was almost everything she'd ever wanted, her adoring, adorable partner presenting it on a silver platter like it was his pleasure, and she hardly knew what to do with it except hold on tight.

Her fingers danced through his hair again, twining and claiming, skimming gentle nails over his scalp where a pair of cat ears so often sat. He knew who she was and loved her as both Ladybug and Marinette — there was no reason to hide any more, no need to lie and hold back. Maybe Tikki would be upset with her for blowing her cover, but it wasn't like it could be undone, and she planned to take full advantage of that.

_"I fell in love with you during the Stoneheart attack."_

_"You were amazing."_

_"You stood up when no one else_ could _."_

How had she had this for so long without realizing it? She could have kicked herself if she weren't so pleased with the current proceedings. Still, Marinette was determined to make up for lost time, breathing out her own whispered endearments for every one of his she breathed in. "You're amazing" and "You're so brave" and "You mean so much to me", beating out a tender rhythm that echoed her racing heart.

Adrien exhaled a shuddering sigh into her mouth, tingling at the scrape of her nails and twitching into her hands at the praise, feeling it sing into his bones.

She was so soft and so warm and so _close_ and all he wanted to do was _bury_ himself in her, in her fierce, gentle affection, in the way she smelled and tasted and _sounded_ —

She called him _amazing._

She called him _brave._

She loved him, she loved him, she loved him, she loved him — and whether that was a mantra or a pulse, Adrien couldn't tell. He could only tell that he got a little weaker, a little warmer, a little more blissed with every repetition.

" _Mmmn... Ladybug..._ "

The shirt she was wearing bunched under his hand as he dragged it up her hips. It was only half intentional — a consequence of wanting to dig his fingers into the supple flesh under his palms — but it let his fingertips graze the skin underneath.

With another involuntary groan, he pushed her deeper into the nest of bedding, nails scraping her hip as he just about folded into her.

Marinette's answering moan was as drawn-out as the way she arched into him, legs tangling with his while she squirmed under the delicious warmth of his hands.

" _Chaton_ ," she murmured against his mouth, wrapping her arms more comfortably around his shoulders. Now that the anxiety and tension had passed she found herself relaxing bonelessly beneath him, until both of them were half-swallowed by the blankets and pillows. Her brain slowed with every stroke of calloused fingers against her skin, dragged under by the feeling of _content_ that had enveloped her.

Everything was perfect. Cozy. Peaceful. Marinette drifted in Adrien's presence and let the pace of the kiss follow her meandering thoughts, deep and slow and dreamlike, a lazy but heartfelt smile stealing across her lips.

"I love you," she whispered again, just because she could. Light kisses found their way along his jaw and throat until she could nuzzle the crook of his neck, muffling a yawn against the skin there. "'m really glad you knew."

"Me too," he mumbled, returning a kiss to the crown of her head, every inch of his skin buzzing from her sleepy ministrations. "I'm... really glad you knew too."

For more than the fact that he hadn't accidentally made her kiss someone she wasn't interested in.

(He thought about he last few months of cautious friendship, of constantly trying to ignore the beat of _it's her it's her it's Ladybug_ in the back of his brain when she smiled or laughed or did something ridiculous, thought of her _knowing him_ through it all, and wanted to laugh.

Laugh, or float away.

 _She loved him._ )

...Though she might not in the morning when she found she'd spent the night on a strange couch and had only a scant few hours of sleep before her morning class.

Reluctantly (very reluctantly), he pushed himself up, hyperaware of the burning trail of slightly damp skin between his ear and collarbone. "I'll... let you sleep. You have a class in the morning, right?"

Marinette let out a petulant whine, her arms tightening around his neck like a three year old who didn't want to go to bed. The sound trailed off in a grumble at the mention of class.

"'ll skip it," she muttered. Spend the morning slumped in an uncomfortable plastic chair, nursing a hangover through Business 110, or curled up snoozing in Adrien's blankets? She knew which had her vote. Her attendance record could take it.

"What about—" She broke off for another yawn, her jaw almost cracking with the effort. "—what about you?"

It was, Adrien found, very, _very_ difficult to be responsible when the love of your life was clinging to you and protesting said responsibility. He gave up halfway, collapsing on top of her only just as the last of the words left her mouth.

"Cancelled," he mumbled, her breath hot on his sensitized neck. He shivered and yawned himself.

Reasons why he should get up and _not_ fall asleep here: the couch was only so comfortable, and being pinned to it by his body weight was probably _not_ the way to safely recover from a hangover. In fact, it might be a good way to die, if he accidentally cut off her breathing in the night somehow. That, and he'd never actually slept in the same bed as another person before; what if he ended up violating her in her sleep somehow?

Reasons why he _should_ fall asleep right here: Marinette, who seemed to want him to.

In the end, common sense won out, and he heaved himself back up with a sigh.

"Well, my lady, I know I'm a lot better company than coursework," he said, faux-suave and sliding his legs out of the tangle of her nest, "but this couch is only more comfortable than the common room's if you're the only one on it."

Marinette swallowed another whine as his warmth retreated, burrowing back into the blankets to make up for it.

"I _was_ comfortable," she protested, entertaining fuzzy thoughts of sleeping tangled up in blankets and _Adrien_ : her head tucked under his chin, his arms around her, her legs woven with his as the steady rise and fall of his chest lulled her to sleep...

...his bewildered yelp when she inevitably kicked him onto the floor during said sleep...

Marinette winced and promptly gave up any couch sharing plans — she'd forgotten how badly she sprawled out when she was snoozing. She'd once kicked her giant cat pillow down her loft stairs in her room back at the bakery without any memory of doing so, and that was in a double bed. Adrien on a narrow couch would probably fare a lot worse.

"But I _guess_ I should let you get some sleep too," she amended, drawing the covers up to her chin with a dramatic sigh.

Adrien huffed a surprised laugh, muffled by the exhaustion making itself known at the base of his brain stem, and slithered the rest of the way out in one motion.

"Very kind of you, my lady," he yawned, the last word catching on a grunt as he stretched out his spine.

Marinette hummed sleepily, smiling at the sound of his laugh and cracking one eye open to peek at him.

"I'm always—"

...Only to get a singular eyeful of Adrien Agreste painted in moonlight and shadow, his unbuttoned shirt gaping open to reveal lean physique and stretching muscles from his throat all the way down to...

Down to pants that he had definitely not been wearing when he'd gone to bed.

"—k-kind..." she croaked, the rest of the night's events crashing back in like an akuma attack to the gut.

Right. She had definitely sexted Adrien earlier that night. He had definitely gone along with it. She had definitely taunted him about _coming_ , of all things, and there had definitely been some suspicious noises from his room. He had definitely promised to _pin her against a wall_ at some point while kissing her (or let her pin him — she definitely wasn't picky). All of that had definitely happened less than twenty four hours ago. And now he was definitely wearing different pants.

She yanked the blankets up over her nose, hoping her cheeks weren't _actually_ hot enough to glow in the dark, even though they felt like they were.

She was _definitely_ doomed.

Unaware, Adrien released his stretch with a sigh, scrubbing his scalp and rolling his shoulders for the pleasure of it, mind luxuriously blank.

Definitely time for bed — or, at least, time for lying in bed and trying to cool off enough to sleep.

( _She loved him_ and it felt like an adrenaline shot every time he remembered that one single tiny little _world-changing_ fact.)

He glanced down at her and almost laughed again at the ninja mask she'd made of his blankets. It got lost on its way up, smoothed and dampened by the warm glow sitting in his chest until it met the air as a sigh or a purr or a rumble or all three rolled into one sitting low and easy in the back of his throat.

Impulsively, he dropped a hand and pressed a single finger to the tip of her nose where it jutted through the blankets, memories warm with all the times she'd done it to him — a fingertip to his nose and a smile on her face. "'Course."

Simple as it was, the fond touch lit Marinette's body up like a sparkler, every nerve ending fizzing strong enough to make her curl her toes. She made several wordless, fervent nods, not really sure what she was agreeing to.

" _Pfffft._ "

Adrien let his hand fall away, rubbing the back of his neck with a fond, idle smile. How was she so cute. **_How?_**

If he stopped now (if he bent down and kissed her again because he could do that now, because she didn't mind, because she loved him, because—) they'd never get to sleep.

He indulged himself for one more second and then sighed as he tore himself away and headed for the door. "Then I'm going to bed."

Marinette swallowed hard several times to get her heart out of her throat, and managed a squeaky, "Good night."

"Good night."

And maybe it was just a little too close to his dreams of doing just this, or maybe it had been just waiting to escape him all this time, but as he passed the door, he added, soft and unthinking, "Love you."

There was a catch of breath from the couch as Marinette closed her eyes, savoring the words as they curled in the shells of her ears and then down to twine around her heart, warm and comforting.

"Love you too," she breathed, opening her eyes and tilting her head to smile at him.

...Then quickly averted her gaze, cheeks hot pink in the dark from the pale flash of chest still visible.

_Crash._

Nose, meet door frame.

Adrien pulled his foot from where it had caught in the rug, face heating for what was probably the hundredth time that night as his gut did cartwheels. _Too much, too much, too much—_

(Lonely nights dreaming of _exactly this_ had only weakened his defenses, it looked like.)

"Uh, yeah, goodnight!" he babbled, and then stumbled into his room, unaccountably flustered, and snapped the door shut behind him.

Marinette blinked, cut off by the door before she could ask if he was okay, then sank beneath the blankets with a tentative smile on her lips.

Her entire body was warm, suffused with heat from head to toe. It swirled in concentrations in her cheeks, in her chest, between her legs, alternately soothing and tormenting her.

With a sigh, she squeezed her thighs together and rolled onto her side, determined to focus on the more soothing feeling until she could fall asleep.

_Perfect, pale skin picked out in half-shadow._

_Hot hands tangling in her hair, firm chest pressing against her own, the unfamiliar but shiver-inducing friction of slick lips and tongues._

` _i think i'm going to come if i move wrong_ `

_"Neither of us is against a wall." "Later."_

...even if that might take a while.

Licking her lips, Marinette froze as her purse rustled on the table. Tikki poked her head out, shooting her chosen an exaggerated wink. Marinette flushed redder and stuck her tongue out in response. With a giggle the kwami disappeared again, and Marinette settled down with her smile softened around the edges.

It might take a while, but it was worth every minute.

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was 'virginity'. ;)
> 
> And _super_ thanks to Huffie [for this amazing fanart](http://huffiestrikes.tumblr.com/post/154455196377/its-done-as-always-thanks-to-mirthalia):
> 
> [ ](http://huffiestrikes.tumblr.com/post/154455196377/its-done-as-always-thanks-to-mirthalia)
> 
> Plus [this one from Heather](http://hchano.tumblr.com/post/153741500296/various-doodles-and-sketches-from-the-past-year-i)
> 
> [ ](http://hchano.tumblr.com/post/153741500296/various-doodles-and-sketches-from-the-past-year-i)


End file.
